Stripping off beginning characters

Question

I'm new with Linux and I have a very large file where I have to strip off the first 13 fields or characters. How can this be done?

Answer 1

if you have to do this only once/a few times, a quick way to get it done is
mv large_file large_file_bck
sed s/^.............// < large_file_bck > large_file
(mark the 13 dots...)
if this is an operation you need to do regularly, you could create a better script
a naive script will do the job:
with 2 parameters:
1st the number of chars to strip, 2nd the file name:
#!/bin/bash
# strip_lead nb file
# strip leading chars from text file
mv "${2}" "${2}".bck
a='^'
for ((i=0; i<"${1}"; i++ )) do a="${a}."
done
sed s/`echo "${a}"`// < "${2}".bck > "${2}"
strip_lead 13 somefile
will remove the first 13 chars from the text file
guido