SEQ(1)

📦 version 1.053, in alpine 3.24

💅 SEQ(1) — like, the seq manual page, bestie

okay so this is seq, and it lives in the User Contributed Perl Documentation section of the manual, which is a whole vibe. it prints numbers. that's it. that's the gig. and honestly? iconic. 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

seq — print a numeric sequence. yes, that's the whole name. short, sweet, main character energy. 💖

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

seq [OPTIONS] LAST
seq [OPTIONS] FIRST LAST
seq [OPTIONS] FIRST INCR LAST

three whole ways to run it, and every single one of them slays. pick your fighter. ✨

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay bestie, so here's the tea: seq writes a list of numbers to standard output, and it separates them with a newline character. so far so chill. 🫶

if you only give it LAST, the sequence starts from 1 and the increment is 1. and here's the fun part — LAST can be negative, in which case the sequence starts from 1 with an increment of -1. it's giving "we contain multitudes." 😭

when you specify only FIRST and LAST, the increment will be either 1 or -1 based on whether FIRST is greater. and ngl the inclusivity is real — sequences are inclusive of FIRST and LAST, so seq 3 3 results in the sequence 3. one single number. a solo act. a whole meal for one. 💅

when you need an increment other than 1 or -1, that's your cue to use the INCR argument. zero is not a valid increment — do not try it, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. 👑 positive numbers may optionally include a '+' prefix (fancy, we love a little flourish ✨). and floating point numbers may be entered in decimal notation (e.g. 0.2223). periodt.

🧚 OPTIONS 🧚

the following options are available:

  • -f FORMAT — set a printf format specifier instead of the default '%g'. basically you get to dress your numbers up however you want. 💖
  • -s STRING — separate each number with STRING instead of the newline character. custom separator, custom vibe, we love to see it. 🌈

💀 BUGS 💀

Corrupt printf format specifiers may be entered.

yeah. that's it. that's the whole bug section. no cap, it's one line and it's lowkey sending me 😭 — the door is unlocked, the door is open, please be careful out there with your format strings. 🙈

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Written by Michael Mikonos. we stan. 💜

Copyright (c) 2023 Michael Mikonos.

This code is licensed under the Artistic License 2.

okay that's the whole page, you're officially a seq expert now, go forth and print numbers responsibly bestie 🦋✨💖

oh and also — this page came from perl v5.42.2, dated 2026-02-15, so shoutout to that version and that date, mwah 🎀

📦 where this page comes from