This document is a Mac OS X manual page. Manual pages are a command-line technology for providing documentation. You can view these manual pages locally using the man(1) command. These manual pages come from many different sources, and thus, have a variety of writing styles.

For more information about the manual page format, see the manual page for manpages(5).

CUT(1)                    BSD General Commands Manual                   CUT(1)

NAME
     cut -- select portions of each line of a file

SYNOPSIS
     cut -b list [-n] [file ...]
     cut -c list [file ...]
     cut -f list [-d delim] [-s] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION
     The cut utility selects portions of each line (as specified by list) from each file and writes them to
     the standard output.  If no file arguments are specified, or a file argument is a single dash (`-'),
     cut reads from the standard input.  The items specified by list can be in terms of column position or
     in terms of fields delimited by a special character.  Column numbering starts from 1.

     The list option argument is a comma or whitespace separated set of increasing numbers and/or number
     ranges.  Number ranges consist of a number, a dash (`-'), and a second number and select the fields or
     columns from the first number to the second, inclusive.  Numbers or number ranges may be preceded by a
     dash, which selects all fields or columns from 1 to the first number.  Numbers or number ranges may be
     followed by a dash, which selects all fields or columns from the last number to the end of the line.
     Numbers and number ranges may be repeated, overlapping, and in any order.  It is not an error to select
     fields or columns not present in the input line.

     The options are as follows:

     -b list
             The list specifies byte positions.

     -c list
             The list specifies character positions.

     -d delim
             Use delim as the field delimiter character instead of the tab character.

     -f list
             The list specifies fields, separated in the input by the field delimiter character (see the -d
             option.)  Output fields are separated by a single occurrence of the field delimiter character.

     -n      Do not split multi-byte characters.  Characters will only be output if at least one byte is
             selected, and, after a prefix of zero or more unselected bytes, the rest of the bytes that form
             the character are selected.

     -s      Suppress lines with no field delimiter characters.  Unless specified, lines with no delimiters
             are passed through unmodified.

ENVIRONMENT
     The LANG, LC_ALL and LC_CTYPE environment variables affect the execution of the cut utility.  Their
     effect is described in environ(7).

EXIT STATUS
     The cut utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

EXAMPLES
     Extract users' login names and shells from the system passwd(5) file as ``name:shell'' pairs:

           cut -d : -f 1,7 /etc/passwd

     Show the names and login times of the currently logged in users:

           who | cut -c 1-16,26-38

SEE ALSO
     colrm(1), paste(1)

STANDARDS
     The cut utility conforms to IEEE Std 1003.2-1992 (``POSIX.2'').

HISTORY
     A cut command appeared in AT&T System III UNIX.

BSD                              June 28, 2004                             BSD