1 .\" $OpenBSD: cut.1,v 1.27 2016/10/24 13:46:58 schwarze Exp $
2 .\" $NetBSD: cut.1,v 1.6 1995/10/02 20:19:26 jtc Exp $
4 .\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990, 1993
5 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
7 .\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
8 .\" the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
10 .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
11 .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
13 .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
14 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
15 .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
16 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
17 .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
18 .\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
19 .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
20 .\" without specific prior written permission.
22 .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
23 .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
24 .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
25 .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
26 .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
27 .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
28 .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
29 .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
30 .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
31 .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
34 .\" @(#)cut.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
36 .Dd $Mdocdate: October 24 2016 $
41 .Nd select portions of each line of a file
58 utility selects portions of each line (as specified by
62 and writes them to the standard output.
65 arguments are specified, or a file argument is a single dash
68 reads from the standard input.
69 The items specified by
71 can be in terms of column position or in terms of fields delimited
72 by a special character.
73 Column and field numbering starts from 1;
74 output is in the same order as input, not in the order selected.
77 is a comma or whitespace separated set of numbers and/or
79 Number ranges consist of a number, a dash
82 which select the fields or columns from the first number to the second,
84 Numbers or number ranges may be preceded by a dash, which selects all
85 fields or columns from 1 to the first number.
86 Numbers or number ranges may be followed by a dash, which selects all
87 fields or columns from the last number to the end of the line.
88 Numbers and number ranges may be repeated, overlapping, and in any order.
89 It is not an error to select fields or columns not present in the
92 The options are as follows:
97 specifies byte positions.
101 specifies character positions.
103 Use the first character of
105 as the field delimiter character.
112 specifies fields, separated by the field delimiter character.
113 The selected fields are output,
114 separated by the field delimiter character.
116 Do not split multi-byte characters.
117 A character is written to standard output if and only if the byte
118 position holding its last byte is selected.
120 Suppresses lines with no field delimiter characters.
121 Unless specified, lines with no delimiters are passed through unmodified.
124 .Bl -tag -width LC_CTYPE
126 The character encoding
128 It decides which byte sequences form characters.
132 or an unsupported value,
139 uses the first byte of
145 utility exits 0 if all input files are output successfully,
146 and >0 if an error occurs.
148 Extract login names and shells from the system
154 .Dl "$ cut -d : -f 1,7 /etc/passwd"
156 Show the names and login times of logged in users:
158 .Dl "$ who | cut -c 1-8,18-30"
165 utility is compliant with the