FACTOR(1)

📦
version 9.12 · 24 versions
, in arch rolling

💖 FACTOR(1) 💖

the User Commands chapter of your life where numbers get SHREDDED ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

factor — bestie, it factors numbers. that's it. that's the whole job. 👑

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

factor [OPTION] [NUMBER]...

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

Okay so here's the tea 🍓 — factor prints the prime factors of every integer NUMBER you hand it. Prime factors are literally the building blocks, the little LEGO bricks every number is made of, and this tool just... tells you what they are. Iconic behaviour, no notes. 💅

And if you don't give it any *NUMBER*s on the command line? No stress, babe, it just reads them from standard input instead. She's flexible like that. 🫶

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

  • -h, --exponents — prints repeated factors in the form p^e unless e is 1 🧚 so like, if a prime shows up more than once, you get the cute little exponent notation instead of seeing the same number over and over.
  • --help — shows you this help text and then dips out. bye! 👋
  • --version — spits out the version info and exits. she's telling you who she is. main character energy fr fr. ⭐

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Written by Paul Rubin, Torbjorn Granlund, and Niels Moller. legends, all three of them. 👑

🙈 REPORTING BUGS 🙈

Found a bug? Not a vibe. Tell the devs, bestie:

Copyright © 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.

This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.

There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. 😭 like, none. zero. don't come for her if something breaks, okay?

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🎀 this is GNU coreutils 9.12, from September 2026, and it's FACTOR(1) — go forth and factor, you absolute icon 💖✨

📦 where this page comes from