CUT(1)

💖 cut(1) — the General Commands Manual's own slicing queen 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to cut(1), straight out of the General Commands Manual ✨ this is the little tool that takes every line of your files and, like, cuts the parts you want out of them. no cap, it's iconic.

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🌸 NAME 🌸

cut — extract sections from each line of files. that's it. that's the whole job. she does one thing and she ate 💅

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

cut OPTION... [FILE]...

like, give her some options and maybe some files and she'll handle it 🫶

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

extract sections from each line of files. literally her whole personality 💖 you point at the columns you want, she hands them over, everybody's happy.

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

so here's the menu, bestie — pick your fighter 👑

• -b, --bytes <LIST> — extract the bytes listed in LIST. byte by byte, she's precise like that 🍓
• -c, --characters <LIST> — extract the characters listed in LIST. character girlies rise 🌸
• -d, --delimiter <DELIM> — use DELIM as the field separator (default: Tab). yes bestie, Tab is the default, she's classy like that 💅
• -w, --whitespace-delimited[=<trimmed>] — use any whitespace (Space/Tab) as the delimiter. and if you pass trimmed, she also ignores leading and trailing blanks 🧚 the only possible value is:
  • trimmed
• -f, --fields <LIST> — extract the fields listed in LIST. the classic. the main character 👑
• -F <LIST> — like -f, but she merges adjacent delimiters, and the delimiter defaults to whitespace while the output delimiter defaults to a space. lowkey a whole different vibe 🔥
• --complement — invert the selection: print all the columns except the ones you specified. the "not you" of it all 💀
• -s, --only-delimited — suppress lines that don't contain the delimiter. if you're not delimited you're not invited 🙈
• -z, --zero-terminated — use NULL (\0) instead of newline as the line terminator. for when newlines are just too mainstream ⭐
• -O, --output-delimiter <NEW_DELIM> — replace the input delimiter with NEW_DELIM in the output. glow-up for your separators ✨
• -n, --no-partial — with -b, do not output partial multi-byte characters. no half-finished characters on her watch 🎀
• -h, --help — print help 🫶
• -V, --version — print version 💜

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🌈 EXTRA 🌈

if no FILE is specified, she reads from stdin — no big deal, she's flexible like that. and you can use '-' as a FILE argument to include stdin too 💖

LIST is a comma-separated list of numbers or ranges, iykyk:

  N           only column N
  N-          columns N through the end of the line
  N-M         columns N through M
  -M          columns 1 through M

examples, because seeing it > reading it, fr fr:

• cut -f 2,5-7 file.txt — extract fields 2, 5, 6, and 7
• cut -f 3- file.txt — extract field 3 to the end of the line
• cut --complement -f 4-6 file.txt — extract all fields except 4, 5, and 6
• cut -d',' -f1 file.csv — extract first field from a CSV

bestie listen — ranges are inclusive of both ends for N-M, and the open-ended ones do exactly what they say. don't come for me if you typo your LIST, that's on you 🙈

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⭐ VERSION ⭐

v(uutils coreutils) 0.12.0

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aaaand that's the page!! this cut(1) moment was served to you by v(uutils coreutils) 0.12.0, dated 2026-09-17, from the General Commands Manual — slay, go slice something, ily, bye 👑💖🦋