.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 2003 Gunnar Ritter
.\"
.\" This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied
.\" warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages
.\" arising from the use of this software.
.\"
.\" Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose,
.\" including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute
.\" it freely, subject to the following restrictions:
.\"
.\" 1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not
.\"    claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software
.\"    in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be
.\"    appreciated but is not required.
.\"
.\" 2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be
.\"    misrepresented as being the original software.
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.\" 3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.
.\" Sccsid @(#)cut.1	1.8 (gritter) 12/6/04
.TH CUT 1 "12/6/04" "Heirloom Toolchest" "User Commands"
.SH NAME
cut \- cut out selected fields of each line of a file
.SH SYNOPSIS
\fBcut \-b \fIlist\fR [\fB\-n\fR] [\fIfile\fR\ .\ .\ .\ ]
.br
\fBcut \-c \fIlist\fR [\fIfile\fR\ .\ .\ .\ ]
.br
\fBcut \-f \fIlist\fR [\fB\-d \fIchar\fR] [\fB\-s\fR] [\fIfile\fR\ .\ .\ .\ ]
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.B cut
utility selects columns of
.I files
for printing
based either on byte position, character position,
or field delimiters.
.PP
If no
.I file
is given,
or if
.I file
is
.BR \- ,
.B cut
reads from standard input.
.PP
The
.I list
consists of numbers separated by commas or blanks
that select the corresponding input field,
starting at 1.
Ranges of fields may be given as in
.TP
\fIm\fB\-\fIn\fR
Selects all fields from
.I m
to
.IR n .
.TP
\fIm\fB\-\fR
Selects all fields from
.I m
to the last field of each input line.
.TP
\fB\-\fIn\fR
Selects all fields from the first field
to
.IR n .
.PP
The
.B cut
command accepts the following options:
.TP
\fB\-c\fI list\fR
Each character of an input line forms a column.
All selected characters are printed without intervening separators;
all newline characters of the input file are passed through.
.TP
\fB\-d\fI char\fR
Sets the field delimiter character for the
.B \-f
option to
.IR char .
.TP
\fB\-f\fI list\fR
Columns are sequences of zero or more characters
separated by a field delimiter character,
by default a tabulator (\et).
The selected fields are printed,
separated by the field delimiter character.
Lines that do not contain the field delimiter character
are passed through unchanged.
.TP
\fB\-s\fR
With the
.B \-f
option,
lines that do not contain the field delimiter character
are not passed through.
.PP
The following options were introduced by POSIX.2:
.TP
\fB\-b\fI list\fR
Each single byte of an input line forms a column.
All selected bytes are printed without intervening separators;
all newline characters of the input file are passed through.
.TP
\fB\-n\fR
Changes the behavior of the
.B \-b
option such that ranges start and end at character boundaries.
.SH "ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES"
.TP
.BR LANG ", " LC_ALL
See
.IR locale (7).
.TP
.B LC_CTYPE
Determines the mapping of bytes to characters
for the argument to the
.B \-d
option
and in input files processed
with the
.BR \-bn ,
.BR \-c ,
and
.B \-f
options.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
paste(1),
locale(7)
.SH NOTES
Since
.I "cut \-f"
cannot be told to recognize both space and tabulator as delimiters,
or to take adjacent delimiter characters as single delimiters,
it is not generally usable
to select fields of white-space separated tables.
Use
.IR awk (1)
for this purpose.