Install hck Text Processing Tool on Ubuntu 24.04

The hck is a command line tool for processing text that allows you to extract specific sections of each line of a file. The hck can be used as alternative for cut Linux command. This tutorial explains how to install hck text processing tool on Ubuntu 24.04.

Install hck

Download hck executable from GitHub releases page to /usr/local/bin directory:

sudo wget -qO /usr/local/bin/hck https://github.com/sstadick/hck/releases/latest/download/hck-linux-amd64

Set execute permission:

sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/hck

Check the hck version to verify the installation:

hck --version

Testing hck

Create a file with sample data:

printf "John,Doe\nJane,Smith\nSam,Brown" > test.txt

Use hck to extract the first field from the file:

hck -d',' -f1 test.txt

Here, the -d',' option specifies the delimiter (a comma), and the -f1 option specifies that you want to extract the first field from each line. The output will be:

John
Jane
Sam

Uninstall hck

To remove hck, delete its corresponding file:

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/bin/hck