Re: cut: bug our feature ???

[Jim Meyering]

Cedric Boudin <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hi dear core[wo]man,
>
> cut --version
> cut (coreutils) 5.2.1
>
> I try to ouput the output delimiter option of the cut programm with
> splitting with the -c options
>
> that is what I have
>
> 082006
> 072006
>
> that is what I want
> 08,2006
> 07,2006
>
> that is what I do
> cut -c1-2,3-6 --output-delimiter=','
>
> that is what I get
> 082006
> 072006
>
> trying the --output-delimiter=',' with the -d option works perfectly.
>
> If this is like it should be then a hint in the man page like
> --output-delimiter=',' only works in conjunction with -d
> would be of the best effect.
> if this is not like it should be then it is a bug

Thank you for the nice bug report.
Unfortunately for you (no fame and glory for finding a new bug :-),
that bug was fixed back in early 2005, in the coreutils 5.3.0 release.

Here's what I get when using coreutils-6.1:

  $ echo 082006|cut -c1-2,3-6 --output-delimiter=,
  08,2006

The latest release is here.
It is officially "unstable", but appears to be quite solid:

  ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-6.1.tar.bz2