Re: Possible bug in ``cut -c --output-delimiter''

[Paul Eggert]

David Krider <address@hidden> writes:

> Is the changed behavior in cut (with an output
> delimiter) a bug or a feature?

I'd say a bug, albeit a relatively-low-priority one since (as you
mentioned) the old behavior was undocumented and unsupported.
If you can write a patch (or find someone else to do so) I suspect the
coreutils maintainer would look upon it favorably.

Perhaps the hardest part of writing a patch would be fixing the
documentation to say exactly what cut -b/-c should do when fields abut
but do not overlap.  For example, presumably this:

cut --output-delimiter='|' -c 1-10,11-20,21-30,15-25

would output a delimiter between columns 10 and 11, but not between 20
and 21.

If you're coding a solution, you might also look at the
Nieuwenhuizen-Meyering patch of 2003-01-09?  Please see:

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/2003-01/msg00002.html