Obtaining lines from a text file where a column has some value

You have file comma separated values. You need certain rows where a(some) specific column(s) has some value.

Filtering by the third column, obtain that column only
awk -F',' '($3 ~ "VALUE") {print $3}' File.csv

Filtering by the third column, obtain the whole row
awk -F',' '($3 ~ "VALUE") {print $0}' File.csv

Filtering by the second column, looking for all rows in which the second column starts with "XA", obtain the whole row
awk -F',' '($2 ~ "^XA") {print $0}' File.csv

Filtering by the second column, looking for all rows in which the second column contains exactly "XA", obtain the whole row
awk -F',' '($2 ~ "^XA$") {print $0}' File.csv

=Notes=
 * On Solaris, use nawk instead of awk. On some other systems, you might want to use gawk instead.

= See also = How to know column headers positions