NAME
cut
—
select portions of each line of a
file
SYNOPSIS
cut |
-b list
[-n ] [file ...] |
cut |
-c list
[file ...] |
cut |
-f list
[-s ] [-d
delim] [file ...] |
DESCRIPTION
The cut
utility selects portions of each
line (as specified by list) from each
file and writes them to the standard output. If no
file arguments are specified, or a file argument is a
single dash (‘-’), cut
reads from the
standard input. The items specified by list can be in
terms of column position or in terms of fields delimited by a special
character. Column and field numbering starts from 1.
list is a comma or whitespace separated set of numbers and/or number ranges. Number ranges consist of a number, a dash (‘-’), and a second number which select the fields or columns from the first number to the second, inclusive. Numbers or number ranges may be preceded by a dash, which selects all fields or columns from 1 to the first number. Numbers or number ranges may be followed by a dash, which selects all fields or columns from the last number to the end of the line. Numbers and number ranges may be repeated, overlapping, and in any order. It is not an error to select fields or columns not present in the input line.
The options are as follows:
-b
list- The list specifies byte positions.
-c
list- The list specifies character positions.
-d
delim- Use the first character of delim as the field delimiter character. The default is the ⟨TAB⟩ character.
-f
list- The list specifies fields, separated by the field delimiter character. The selected fields are output, separated by the field delimiter character.
-n
- Do not split multi-byte characters.
-s
- Suppresses lines with no field delimiter characters. Unless specified, lines with no delimiters are passed through unmodified.
EXIT STATUS
The cut
utility exits 0 if all input files
are output successfully, and >0 if an error occurs.
EXAMPLES
Extract login names and shells from the system passwd(5) file as “name:shell” pairs:
$ cut -d : -f 1,7
/etc/passwd
Show the names and login times of logged in users:
$ who | cut -c 1-8,18-30
SEE ALSO
STANDARDS
The cut
utility is compliant with the
IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”)
specification.
CAVEATS
The current implementation does not support multi-byte characters.
Consequently -c
does the same as
-b
, and -n
has no
effect.