Ubuntu – Print the first column

command linetext processing

I want to print column 1 of this file. I used this command: awk '{print $1}' but it just printed the first word of the 1st column.

DATA

ABC transporters                             ABC transporters
Alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism  Alanine, aspartate 
alpha-Linolenic acid metabolism              alpha-Linolenic acid metabolism
Aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis                  Aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis
Amino sugar and nucleotide sugar metabolism  Amino sugar and nucleotide
Arachidonic acid metabolism                  Arachidonic 

Output:

ABC
Alanine,
alpha-Linolenic
Aminoacyl-tRNA
Amino
Arachidonic

Desired Output:

ABC transporters
Alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism
alpha-Linolenic acid metabolism 
Aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis 
Amino sugar and nucleotide sugar metabolism 
Arachidonic acid metabolism 

Best Answer

What I can see is that your columns are delimited by two space.

so with awk:

awk -F '\\s\\s' '{print $1}'
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