On 21Nov2007 02:12, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: | On Wed, 21 Nov 2007, Frank Cox wrote: | > On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 01:44:26 -0500 (EST) | > "Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: | > > i understand that that's not indicated on the man page. on the | > > other hand, is there any reason that it *wasn't* done that way? Because cut is a data pruning tool, not a reporting tool. | > > it would seem that that would be an obvious enhancement and, | > > certainly, that would be more intuitive behaviour, no? It would never have occured to me to cut fields out of order. You've got awk et al for reporting. | > It would be fairly trivial to "roll your own" if you require that | > functionality. | | yes, i realize that -- i'm just baffled why that wasn't the obvious | behaviour in the first place. i mean, i'm trying to imagine the | brainstorming session: | | A: "and if the user asks for fields 1 and 2, we'll print 1 and 2." | B: "yup, i'm all over that." | A: "and if he asks for 2 and 1 ... i know, we'll still print 1, then | 2. hahahaha! oh, man, sometimes i crack me up!" Or... "Hmm, I only want a few fields from the input,so I'll write a tool to crop the input on demand." Once you realise that cut _cuts_ stuff it's all obvious. It doesn't start with a blank output and fill stuff in, it starts with a filled in line and cuts stuff out. | i'm just curious what kind of thinking went into doing something so | non-intuitive. I'm not. You're reading more into the command than the author intended, because you have the wrong mental model of its purpose. | after all, if you ask "awk" to print given fields, it | does what you expect. And again: cut is not filling things in. It's cutting things out. -- Cameron Simpson <cs@xxxxxxxxxx> DoD#743 http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/ Peeve: Going to our favorite breakfast place, only to find that they were hit by a car...AND WE MISSED IT. - Don Baldwin, <donb@xxxxxxxxxx>
