Tom, >11/09/2013 11:49 AM 7,887,098 this is filename 1.txt >11/10/2013 12:50 PM 886,666 this be 2.txt >11/11/2013 04:23 AM 666 tab me file.txt This still works on all your examples. echo '11/11/2013 04:23 AM 666 tab me file.txt' | cut -d ':' -f 2 | awk -F " [,0-9]+ " '{print $2}' John Vaughters