1.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by 5.\" the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. 6.\" 7.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 8.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 9.\" are met: 10.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 11.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 12.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 13.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 14.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 15.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 16.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 17.\" without specific prior written permission. 18.\" 19.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 20.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 21.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 22.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 23.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 24.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 25.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 26.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 27.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 28.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 29.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 30.\" 31.\" @(#)cut.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93 32.\" $FreeBSD$ 33.\" 34.Dd December 21, 2006 35.Dt CUT 1 36.Os 37.Sh NAME 38.Nm cut 39.Nd cut out selected portions of each line of a file 40.Sh SYNOPSIS 41.Nm 42.Fl b Ar list 43.Op Fl n 44.Op Ar 45.Nm 46.Fl c Ar list 47.Op Ar 48.Nm 49.Fl f Ar list 50.Op Fl d Ar delim 51.Op Fl s 52.Op Ar 53.Sh DESCRIPTION 54The 55.Nm 56utility cuts out selected portions of each line (as specified by 57.Ar list ) 58from each 59.Ar file 60and writes them to the standard output. 61If no 62.Ar file 63arguments are specified, or a file argument is a single dash 64.Pq Sq Fl , 65.Nm 66reads from the standard input. 67The items specified by 68.Ar list 69can be in terms of column position or in terms of fields delimited 70by a special character. 71Column numbering starts from 1. 72.Pp 73The 74.Ar list 75option argument 76is a comma or whitespace separated set of increasing numbers and/or 77number ranges. 78Number ranges consist of a number, a dash 79.Pq Sq \- , 80and a second number 81and select the fields or columns from the first number to the second, 82inclusive. 83Numbers or number ranges may be preceded by a dash, which selects all 84fields or columns from 1 to the last number. 85Numbers or number ranges may be followed by a dash, which selects all 86fields or columns from the last number to the end of the line. 87Numbers and number ranges may be repeated, overlapping, and in any order. 88It is not an error to select fields or columns not present in the 89input line. 90.Pp 91The options are as follows: 92.Bl -tag -width indent 93.It Fl b Ar list 94The 95.Ar list 96specifies byte positions. 97.It Fl c Ar list 98The 99.Ar list 100specifies character positions. 101.It Fl d Ar delim 102Use 103.Ar delim 104as the field delimiter character instead of the tab character. 105.It Fl f Ar list 106The 107.Ar list 108specifies fields, separated in the input by the field delimiter character 109(see the 110.Fl d 111option). 112Output fields are separated by a single occurrence of the field delimiter 113character. 114.It Fl n 115Do not split multi-byte characters. 116Characters will only be output if at least one byte is selected, and, 117after a prefix of zero or more unselected bytes, the rest of the bytes 118that form the character are selected. 119.It Fl s 120Suppress lines with no field delimiter characters. 121Unless specified, lines with no delimiters are passed through unmodified. 122.El 123.Sh ENVIRONMENT 124The 125.Ev LANG , LC_ALL 126and 127.Ev LC_CTYPE 128environment variables affect the execution of 129.Nm 130as described in 131.Xr environ 7 . 132.Sh EXIT STATUS 133.Ex -std 134.Sh EXAMPLES 135Extract users' login names and shells from the system 136.Xr passwd 5 137file as 138.Dq name:shell 139pairs: 140.Pp 141.Dl "cut -d : -f 1,7 /etc/passwd" 142.Pp 143Show the names and login times of the currently logged in users: 144.Pp 145.Dl "who | cut -c 1-16,26-38" 146.Sh SEE ALSO 147.Xr colrm 1 , 148.Xr paste 1 149.Sh STANDARDS 150The 151.Nm 152utility conforms to 153.St -p1003.2-92 . 154.Sh HISTORY 155A 156.Nm 157command appeared in 158.Tn AT&T 159System III 160.Ux . 161