Some Useful Linux Command Lines for Manipulating CSV Files

Recently I am working on the site, Wildlife in China, which are aiming to collecting all key protected wildlife designated by Chinese government.

The most tedious work is generating and collecting data. Today I list some frequently used Linux commands for manipulating CSV files.

Delete the Nth Column

Here is the example that If you want to delete the 12th column in CSV file

cut -d, -f12 --complement older.csv > newer.csv

Add Line Number As First Column

 awk '{printf "%s,%s\n", NR,$0}' older.csv > newer.csv

Delete First Column

sed -r 's/^[^,]+,//' older.csv > newer.csv

Copy images from one folder to another

find /one/folder -iname \*.jpg -print0 | xargs -I{} -0 cp -v {} /another/folder