How to print all lines from a CSV file that contains the exact match of a string from the nth column?

Question

I want to print all lines from a CSV file that match the character string "ac". So if column 2 equals "ac", then print this line.

Before

"id","make","model","yeear","product"
"11","ac","tot","1999","9iuh8b"
"12","acute","huu","1991","soyo"
"13","ac","auu","1992","shjoyo"
"14","bb","ayu","2222","jkqweh"
"15","bb","ac","8238","smiley"

After

"11","ac","tot","1999","9iuh8b"
"13","ac","auu","1992","shjoyo"

I attempted cat file| grep "ac", but this will give me all lines that have ac:

"11","ac","tot","1999","9iuh8b"
"12","acute","huu","1991","soyo"
"13","ac","auu","1992","shjoyo"
"15","bb","ac","8238","smiley"

What is your question? I'm not quite sure what you try to achieve... Do you need to print all lines with the occurrence of *ac*? — agentsmith, Aug 17 '19 at 20:19
@agentsmith I actually want to print all lines, in the second column, that only contain ac between the double-quotes. I'll update the post. — Curious Sam, Aug 17 '19 at 20:20
I assume the output given by ```grep``` is the expected result? Because that's exactly what grep is doing. — agentsmith, Aug 17 '19 at 20:24
@oguzismail ```awk -F, '$2=="ac"' file.txt > temp``` gives me an empty file. — Curious Sam, Aug 17 '19 at 20:36
@oguzismail I also tried ```awk -F, '$2 ~ "ac"' file.txt > temp``` but it that also included ```"12","acute","huu","1991","soyo"``` and that has the string ```acute``` in the second column — Curious Sam, Aug 17 '19 at 20:45
See also [useless use of `cat`](/questions/11710552/useless-use-of-cat) — tripleee, Aug 18 '19 at 17:14

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 17 '19 at 20:45

3

Consider surrounding double quotes:

$ awk -F, '$2=="\"ac\""' input.csv
"11","ac","tot","1999","9iuh8b"
"13","ac","auu","1992","shjoyo"

Or the same with regex pattern matching:

$ awk -F, '$2~/^"ac"$/' input.csv
"11","ac","tot","1999","9iuh8b"
"13","ac","auu","1992","shjoyo"

answered Aug 17 '19 at 20:45

RomanPerekhrest

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Hats off to you mate. Well appreciated. – Curious Sam Aug 17 '19 at 20:49
1

Or if you want to eliminate the double-quotes `awk -F, '{gsub(/"/,"")} $2=="ac"' file` – David C. Rankin Aug 17 '19 at 20:54
@DavidC.Rankin Those double quotes are really handy but the info was great to know. I Appreciate it. – Curious Sam Aug 18 '19 at 05:54
@RomanPerekhrest What if I needed 2 columns to match exact strings like ac and 1992. Can you expand on your answer for me? – Curious Sam Nov 08 '19 at 21:29

How to print all lines from a CSV file that contains the exact match of a string from the nth column?

1 Answers1