why does "cut" print fields in original order?

Dave Ihnat dihnat at dminet.com
Wed Nov 21 14:26:57 UTC 2007


On Wed, Nov 21, 2007 at 02:50:03PM +0800, Ed Greshko wrote:
> You would have to ask the writers (David Ihnat, David MacKenzie, and Jim
> Meyering).

Actually, I originally wrote cut & paste, but after the initial release,
left it on its own.  Thankfully, David MacKenzie and Jim Meyering (neither
of whom I've ever met or communicated with) picked up the ball and kept
working on the programs.  (And whatever prompted me to spend the time to
recreate these programs?  I was working on a Unix clone called 'Venix',
and was annoyed that it didn't have these commands.)

I wrote the programs to be as close to identical to the original Unix
System 5 man page as I could, and "reverse-engineered" it from the man
page description of behavior and options, deliberately not ever referring
to or accessing the original source, since it was copyrighted material
of AT&T.  At the time I was reverse engineering it, I asked numerous
questions on Usenet as to whether I should fix obvious bugs or deviations
in behavior, or extend the command; the overwhelming response was "make
it behave like the 'real' command".

Now, as to why it does what it does?  I don't know for sure, since
I didn't go find whoever wrote the original and ask.  But I can
guess--"do one thing, and do it well."  Cut is supposed to get fields
from a line-delimited data stream.  Period.  Rearrangement is an added
function--one that might be useful, certainly; but that can be done via
other shell tools.

Cheers,
--
	Dave Ihnat
	President, DMINET Consulting, Inc.
	dihnat at dminet.com




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