GUT

Gut it trying to be an easier to use cut command. Often times I defaulted to awk instead when cut didn't get the job done. Altough awk is pretty powerfull it still is not the best solution for simple problems as awk is so much more than just a cut replacement. Gut supports negative indexing and complex split patterns.

Install

go install github.com/Sojamann/gut@v1.0.0

Usage

The default behavior of gut is to cut whenever there is more then one consecutive white-space character.
NOTE: A tab is regarded as multi-whitespace as it appears as more than one.

Help

$ gut -h
Print selected parts of lines from each FILE to standard output.

With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.

    -f      --fields FIELDS                 select only these fields; also print any line
                                                that contains no delimiter character.
                                                Fields can be used more than once
    -cw     --cut-on-whitespace             cut on any whitespace but also trim following
                                                whitespace aswell until first non-whitepsace
    -cmw    --cut-on-multi-whitespace       cut on consecutive whitespace but also trim following
                                                whitespace aswell until first non-whitepsace
    -cs     --cut-on-seperator STR          cut whenever STR is encountered in a line
    -cf     --cut-on-format DELIMS          cut line applying one delimiter in STR after
                                                another
    -fsep   --format-seperator STR          use STR as seperator in the DELIMS specification
                                                Default: ','
    -osep   --ouput-seperator STR           use the STR as the output field seperator
                                                Default: ' '

Only one of the following can be used at a time:
    -cw
    -cmw
    -cs
    -cf

FIELDS is made up of one range, or many ranges separated by commas.
Selected input is written in the same order that it is read.
Each range is one of:

    N     N'th field, counted from 1
   -N     (num items on line) - N
    N:    from N'th field, to end of line
   -N:    (num items on line) - N, to the end of line
    N:M   from N'th to M'th (included) field
    :M    from first to M'th (included) field
    :-M   from first to ((num items on line) - M)'th (included) field
    :     from beginning to end of line

DELIMS is made up on one seperator, or many seperators seperated by commas.
The seperator of DELIMS can be changed using --format-seperator.
Each delimiter can be one of:
    s                   cut on next whitespace
    t                   cut on next tab
    w                   cut on next whitespace but consume all consecutive aswell
    m                   cut on next multi whitespace and consume all consecutive aswell
    <str> cut on next encounter of str, where str can by any string

Note: whitespace always means tab and space.

Examples:
    $ echo "A B C" | gut -cw -f 2:
    B C

    $ echo "A  B  C" | gut -f -2:
    B C

    $ echo "A;;B     C" | gut -cf "<;;>,m"
    A B C

    $ echo "A  B,C" | gut -cf "s|<,>" -fsep "|"
    A  B C

Difference

In the following the usecases of sep are highlighted as sep tries to improve on the usability of the cut command.

$ docker image ls
REPOSITORY   TAG                  IMAGE ID       CREATED         SIZE
node         14.18.2-alpine3.15   5f5960be493c   5 months ago    118MB

$ docker image ls | cut -f 3
REPOSITORY   TAG                  IMAGE ID       CREATED         SIZE
node         14.18.2-alpine3.15   5f5960be493c   5 months ago    118MB

$ docker image ls | awk '{ print $3 }'
IMAGE
5f5960be493c

$ docker image ls | gut -f 3
IMAGE ID
5f5960be493c

Examples

Cut types

Default / Multi whitespace cutting

docker image ls | gut -f 3
IMAGE ID
5f5960be493c

$ echo -e "A  B\tC\t\tD E\t     F" | gut -cmw -osep ";"
A;B;C;D E;Fs

Seperator cutting

$ echo -e "A;B;C" | gut -cs ";"
A B C

Format cutting

$ echo -e "A,B\tC    DignoreE" | gut -cf "<,>|t|a|<ignore>" -fsep "|" -osep ";"
A;B;C;D;E