PTX(1)

💖 PTX — like, the permuted index queen 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to ptx from the General Commands Manual (yes that's the manual name, we're fancy here). This is the girl who makes a permuted index out of your file contents, and she eats every single time. 🍓

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✨ NAME ✨

ptx — Produce a permuted index of file contents. Output a permuted index, including context, of the words in the input files. Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too. With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input. Default is -F /. 💅

No cap, that's the whole vibe. She's out here indexing your words with their lil context, and she's not gonna let you forget that long-option arguments apply to short options too. Periodt.

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

ptx [OPTION]... [INPUT]...
ptx -G [OPTION]... [INPUT [OUTPUT]]

psst — that second form? That's the -G traditional mode era, and she takes an OUTPUT too. iykyk.

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Produce a permuted index of file contents. Output a permuted index, including context, of the words in the input files. Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too. With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input. Default is -F /.

fr fr, that's the entire description and it's iconic. She takes your input files, pulls out the words, and gives you the index but permuted, with context, which is giving very much "every word gets its main character moment". 👑

And btw:

• No FILE at all? She reads standard input. 🫶
• FILE is literally -? Also standard input. Same energy.
• The default is -F /. Noted. 💅

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

Every single one, bestie. Not skipping a single flag, that's the rule. 🌈

• -A, --auto-reference — output automatically generated references ✨
• -G, --traditional — behave more like System V ptx 👵 (she's going vintage, we love her for it)
• -F, --flag-truncation <STRING> — use STRING for flagging line truncations 🚩
• -M, --macro-name <STRING> — macro name to use instead of xx 🏷️
• -O — generate output as roff directives 📜
• -T — generate output as TeX directives 🧮
• -R, --right-side-refs — put references at right, not counted in -w ➡️ (yes this matters, remember it)
• -S, --sentence-regexp <REGEXP> — for end of lines or end of sentences 🔚
• -W, --word-regexp <REGEXP> — use REGEXP to match each keyword 🔍
• -b, --break-file <FILE> — word break characters in this FILE ✂️
• -f, --ignore-case — fold lower case to upper case for sorting 🔠
• -g, --gap-size <NUMBER> — gap size in columns between output fields ↔️
• -i, --ignore-file <FILE> — read ignore word list from FILE 🙈
• -o, --only-file <FILE> — read only word list from this FILE 👀
• -r, --references — first field of each line is a reference 🔗
• -t, --typeset-mode — change the default width from 72 to 100 📏
• -w, --width <NUMBER> — output width in columns, reference excluded 📐
• -h, --help — Print help 🆘
• -V, --version — Print version 💫

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⭐ VERSION ⭐

v(uutils coreutils) 0.12.0

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🔥 EXAMPLES 🔥

These are the receipts, bestie. Commands verbatim, character for character, no editing. Copy-paste away. 💜

Generate a permuted index where the first field of each line is an index reference:

ptx [-r|--references] path/to/file

Generate a permuted index with automatically generated index references:

ptx [-A|--auto-reference] path/to/file

Generate a permuted index with a fixed width:

ptx [-w|--width] width_in_columns path/to/file

Generate a permuted index with a list of filtered words:

ptx [-o|--only-file] path/to/filter path/to/file

Generate a permuted index with SYSV-style behaviors:

ptx [-G|--traditional] path/to/file

The examples are provided by the tldr-pages project <https://tldr.sh> under the CC BY 4.0 License. Please note that, as uutils is a work in progress, some examples might fail.

heads up bestie — uutils is literally a work in progress, so some of these examples might just… not pop off. It's not you, it's the WIP. 😭

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and that's the whole page, slay 💖

This one's from uutils coreutils, version v(uutils coreutils) 0.12.0, dated 2026-09-25 — so if you're reading this off that exact PTX(1) page, mwah, you found the right girl. 🎀 Go index something, queen. 🦋✨