The following is an example of the script called "field". Here we use field to print field 6 from an "ls -l" output, $ ls -l | field 6 May Aug Aug Aug May May May Aug Aug May if you prefer, you can do this using an awk one-liner, $ ls -l | awk '{ print $6 }' Although since I do this countless times a day, the "field" script will save me a bunch of keystrokes.