On Wed, 2024-01-17 at 17:26 +0000, Richmond wrote: > In the man page for cut it says: > > -b, --bytes=LIST > select only these bytes > > But there is no equals sign in the actual syntax: > > echo hello|cut -b 2-5 > ello > > echo hello|cut -b=2-5 > cut: invalid byte/character position ‘=2-5’ > Try 'cut --help' for more information. > > Why is this? >
The equals sign only applies to the 'long form' of the option... $echo hello|cut --bytes=2-5 ello This is standard behaviour for a lot of utilities. A hyphen and single letter is the 'short form' and there is an optional space between the letter and it's arguments. A double hyphen and and option name has an '=' separating it from and arguments. For the short form, you can often (usually?) merge multiple option letters and any argument at the end applies to the last option letter. $echo hello|cut -zb2-5 ello$ (the 'z' option says use NUL byte for line terminator so in this case it didn't output the newline and my '$' command prompt got printed straight after the 'ello'. -- Tixy
