How to grep and cut numbers from a file and sum them

There is nothing really wrong with your grep and cut command. You could make it more robust by using "|30201|" as the search pattern. The issue then is dealing with the output.

Using bash:

#!/bin/bash # get the output as a bash array and add the elements nums=( $(grep "|30201|" logfile.txt | cut -f6 -d "|") ) total=0 for i in ${!nums[@]} do total=$(($total+${nums[i]})) done echo $total 

Bash solution.

#!/bin/bash pa=0 ; s=0 ; while read a b ; do \ if [ "$a" == "$pa" ] ; then \ s=$(($s+$b)) ; else if [ "$pa" != 0 ] ; then \ echo $pa $s ; fi ; pa=$a ; s=$b ; fi ; done < <(cat j.txt | awk -F'|' '{printf("%s %s\n",$3,$6)}' | sort -n) echo $pa $s 

Init Previous A and SUM

Cut down the input to fields 3 and 6 and sort them by number

Loop as long as field 3 stays the same, add field 6 to the SUM

if field 3 changes but the Previous A is not 0, output the Previous A and the SUM and reinit Previous A to a and SUM to last field 6 read.

Output last Previous A and SUM.

Output of the given input:

00788 1950 03361 2334 08385 650 08767 650 10234 945 28774 2689 30201 2984 34032 1389 43097 945 

One little tool I keep around I call sumcol

#!/bin/sh # Icarus Sparry. Free for any use. C=${1:?"missing required column number"} shift awk '{s+=$'"$C"'} END { print s }' "$@" 

which adds up the whitespace delimited column you provide. Whilst I would write (as @heemayl does)

awk -F'|' '$3 == 30201 {s+=$6} END{ print s}' logfile.txt 

for the OP's problem, he could use

grep "30201" logfile.txt | cut -f6 -d "|" | sumcol 1 

or

grep "30201" logfile.txt | tr "| " " _" | sumcol 6