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NAME
cut - cut out selected fields of each line of a file
SYNOPSIS
cut -b list [-n] [file ...]
cut -c list [file ...]
cut -f list [-d delim][-s][file ...]
DESCRIPTION
The cut utility shall cut out bytes ( -b option), characters ( -c option), or character-delimited fields
( -f option) from each line in one or more files, concatenate them, and write them to standard output.
OPTIONS
The cut utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 12.2,
Utility Syntax Guidelines.
The application shall ensure that the option-argument list (see options -b, -c, and -f below) is a comma-
separated list or <blank>-separated list of positive numbers and ranges. Ranges can be in three forms.
The first is two positive numbers separated by a hyphen ( low- high), which represents all fields from
the first number to the second number. The second is a positive number preceded by a hyphen (- high),
which represents all fields from field number 1 to that number. The third is a positive number followed
by a hyphen ( low-), which represents that number to the last field, inclusive. The elements in list can
be repeated, can overlap, and can be specified in any order, but the bytes, characters, or fields
selected shall be written in the order of the input data. If an element appears in the selection list
more than once, it shall be written exactly once.
The following options shall be supported:
-b list
Cut based on a list of bytes. Each selected byte shall be output unless the -n option is also
specified. It shall not be an error to select bytes not present in the input line.
-c list
Cut based on a list of characters. Each selected character shall be output. It shall not be an
error to select characters not present in the input line.
-d delim
Set the field delimiter to the character delim. The default is the <tab>.
-f list
Cut based on a list of fields, assumed to be separated in the file by a delimiter character (see
-d). Each selected field shall be output. Output fields shall be separated by a single occurrence
of the field delimiter character. Lines with no field delimiters shall be passed through intact,
unless -s is specified. It shall not be an error to select fields not present in the input line.
-n Do not split characters. When specified with the -b option, each element in list of the form low-
high (hyphen-separated numbers) shall be modified as follows:
* If the byte selected by low is not the first byte of a character, low shall be decremented to
select the first byte of the character originally selected by low. If the byte selected by high
is not the last byte of a character, high shall be decremented to select the last byte of the
character prior to the character originally selected by high, or zero if there is no prior
character. If the resulting range element has high equal to zero or low greater than high, the
list element shall be dropped from list for that input line without causing an error.
Each element in list of the form low- shall be treated as above with high set to the number of bytes in
the current line, not including the terminating <newline>. Each element in list of the form - high shall
be treated as above with low set to 1. Each element in list of the form num (a single number) shall be
treated as above with low set to num and high set to num.
-s Suppress lines with no delimiter characters, when used with the -f option. Unless specified, lines
with no delimiters shall be passed through untouched.
OPERANDS
The following operand shall be supported:
file A pathname of an input file. If no file operands are specified, or if a file operand is '-' , the
standard input shall be used.
STDIN
The standard input shall be used only if no file operands are specified, or if a file operand is '-' .
See the INPUT FILES section.
INPUT FILES
The input files shall be text files, except that line lengths shall be unlimited.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables shall affect the execution of cut:
LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. (See the
Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 8.2, Internationalization Variables for
the precedence of internationalization variables used to determine the values of locale
categories.)
LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other internationalization
variables.
LC_CTYPE
Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for
example, single-byte as opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments and input files).
LC_MESSAGES
Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of diagnostic messages
written to standard error.
NLSPATH
Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES .
ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
Default.
STDOUT
The cut utility output shall be a concatenation of the selected bytes, characters, or fields (one of the
following):
"%s\n", <concatenation of bytes>
"%s\n", <concatenation of characters>
"%s\n", <concatenation of fields and field delimiters>
STDERR
The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
OUTPUT FILES
None.
EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
None.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values shall be returned:
0 All input files were output successfully.
>0 An error occurred.
CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
Default.
The following sections are informative.
APPLICATION USAGE
Earlier versions of the cut utility worked in an environment where bytes and characters were considered
equivalent (modulo <backspace> and <tab> processing in some implementations). In the extended world of
multi-byte characters, the new -b option has been added. The -n option (used with -b) allows it to be
used to act on bytes rounded to character boundaries. The algorithm specified for -n guarantees that:
cut -b 1-500 -n file > file1
cut -b 501- -n file > file2
ends up with all the characters in file appearing exactly once in file1 or file2. (There is, however, a
<newline> in both file1 and file2 for each <newline> in file.)
EXAMPLES
Examples of the option qualifier list:
1,4,7 Select the first, fourth, and seventh bytes, characters, or fields and field delimiters.
1-3,8 Equivalent to 1,2,3,8.
-5,10 Equivalent to 1,2,3,4,5,10.
3- Equivalent to third to last, inclusive.
The low- high forms are not always equivalent when used with -b and -n and multi-byte characters; see the
description of -n.
The following command:
cut -d : -f 1,6 /etc/passwd
reads the System V password file (user database) and produces lines of the form:
<user ID>:<home directory>
Most utilities in this volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 work on text files. The cut utility can be used to
turn files with arbitrary line lengths into a set of text files containing the same data. The paste
utility can be used to create (or recreate) files with arbitrary line lengths. For example, if file
contains long lines:
cut -b 1-500 -n file > file1
cut -b 501- -n file > file2
creates file1 (a text file) with lines no longer than 500 bytes (plus the <newline>) and file2 that
contains the remainder of the data from file. (Note that file2 is not a text file if there are lines in
file that are longer than 500 + {LINE_MAX} bytes.) The original file can be recreated from file1 and
file2 using the command:
paste -d "\0" file1 file2 > file
RATIONALE
Some historical implementations do not count <backspace>s in determining character counts with the -c
option. This may be useful for using cut for processing nroff output. It was deliberately decided not to
have the -c option treat either <backspace>s or <tab>s in any special fashion. The fold utility does
treat these characters specially.
Unlike other utilities, some historical implementations of cut exit after not finding an input file,
rather than continuing to process the remaining file operands. This behavior is prohibited by this volume
of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, where only the exit status is affected by this problem.
The behavior of cut when provided with either mutually-exclusive options or options that do not work
logically together has been deliberately left unspecified in favor of global wording in Utility
Description Defaults .
The OPTIONS section was changed in response to IEEE PASC Interpretation 1003.2 #149. The change
represents historical practice on all known systems. The original standard was ambiguous on the nature of
the output.
The list option-arguments are historically used to select the portions of the line to be written, but do
not affect the order of the data. For example:
echo abcdefghi | cut -c6,2,4-7,1
yields "abdefg" .
A proposal to enhance cut with the following option:
-o Preserve the selected field order. When this option is specified, each byte, character, or field
(or ranges of such) shall be written in the order specified by the list option-argument, even if
this requires multiple outputs of the same bytes, characters, or fields.
was rejected because this type of enhancement is outside the scope of the IEEE P1003.2b draft standard.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.
SEE ALSO
grep , paste , Parameters and Variables
COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition,
Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,
Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The
original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .