Parse all column elements from a linux bash command output

Question

I would like to parse the column elements of the output from the command lsscsi.

Here is a sample output,

# lsscsi

[0:0:0:0]   disk   ATA   VBOX HARDDISK   1.0   /dev/sda
[0:0:1:0]   disk   ATA   VBOX HARDDISK   1.0   /dev/sdb
[1:0:1:0]   disk   ATA   VBOX HARDDISK   1.0   /dev/sdc

Example if I want column 2, my output should be,

disk
disk
disk

If cloumn 7,

/dev/sda
/dev/sdb
/dev/sdc

Thanks

Answer 1

Use awk like this:

awk -v col=7 '{print $col}' file

Or to print 2 columns:

awk -v col1=2 -v col2=7 '{print $col1, $col2}' file

OR to make it print multiple columns using a colon delimited list:

awk -v col='2:7' '
BEGIN {n = split (col, arr, /:/)}
n {
   for (i=1; i in arr; ++i)
      printf "%s%s", $arr[i], (i < n ? OFS : ORS)
}' file