Hi,

I have a lot of files with thousands of rows and usually two columns of data. Column 1 is a coordinate, column 2 is a score. I want to delete rows that have a value in column 2 over, in this case, 50.

For example, here's a clip from a file:

2999898 39
2999899 40.9
2999900 42.7
2999901 44.7
2999902 46.7
2999903 48.9
2999904 51.1
2999905 53.3
2999906 55.7

I want the output to be this:

2999904 51.1
2999905 53.3
2999906 55.7

I know how to use sed for very basic things like deleting rows or ranges of rows but I can't figure out this ostensibly easy command.

Thanks for anyone's help

Not sed, but it works:

No need to cat into awk, awk can read files all on its own:

1 members found this post helpful.

Using sed:
test the result, then add option -i if you want to edit the file in place. This assumes that there are not spaces before the first field, otherwise you have to add more items in the regular expression to strictly match the second field.

Thank you all! I used the awk command first and it worked like a charm. I knew awk would work but I know nothing on its usage. I can understand exactly what it's doing in this command though. I'll be able to adapt this to new uses for sure.

On a related question is there any guide to awk and/or sed that is really, really basic? I mean like a "For Dummies" book of "AWK For Dummies." I need to get a LOT better with awk and sed.

Thanks again

http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Sed.html
http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Awk.html

and of course the GNU awk's official guide, a great piece of documentation:
http://www.gnu.org/manual/gawk/gawk.html

I think EVERYONE could always learn more about awk and sed.

There are lots of tutorials and books, but the amount of information on those two commands is massive. Good luck.

PS: pwc101, yes I know you don't have to use cat, but good catch for claritys sake, thanks.