CUT(1) General Commands Manual CUT(1)

# [NAME](#NAME)

cut - Extract sections from each line of files.

# [SYNOPSIS](#SYNOPSIS)

**cut** OPTION... \[FILE]...

# [DESCRIPTION](#DESCRIPTION)

Extract sections from each line of files.

# [OPTIONS](#OPTIONS)

[**-b**, **--bytes** *<LIST>*](#b)

extract bytes listed in LIST

[**-c**, **--characters** *<LIST>*](#c)

extract characters listed in LIST

[**-d**, **--delimiter** *<DELIM>*](#d)

use DELIM as field separator (default: Tab)

[**-w**, **--whitespace-delimited**\[=*<trimmed>*\]](#w)

use any whitespace (Space/Tab) as delimiter; ignore leading and trailing blanks with 'trimmed'

*Possible values:*

•

trimmed

[**-f**, **--fields** *<LIST>*](#f)

extract fields listed in LIST

[**-F** *<LIST>*](#F)

like -f, but merge adjacent delimiters; the delimiter defaults to whitespace and the output delimiter to a space

[**--complement**](#complement)

invert selection: print all columns except the specified ones

[**-s**, **--only-delimited**](#s)

suppress lines that do not contain the delimiter

[**-z**, **--zero-terminated**](#z)

use NULL (\\0) instead of newline as line terminator

[**-O**, **--output-delimiter** *<NEW\_DELIM>*](#O)

replace input delimiter with NEW\_DELIM in output

[**-n**, **--no-partial**](#n)

with -b, do not output partial multi-byte characters

[**-h**, **--help**](#h)

Print help

[**-V**, **--version**](#V)

Print version

# [EXTRA](#EXTRA)

If no FILE is specified, reads from stdin. Use '-' as a FILE argument to include stdin.

LIST is a comma-separated list of numbers or ranges:

N only column N  
N- columns N through the end of the line  
N-M columns N through M  
\-M columns 1 through M

Examples:

cut -f 2,5-7 file.txt extract fields 2, 5, 6, and 7  
cut -f 3- file.txt extract field 3 to the end of the line  
cut --complement -f 4-6 file.txt extract all fields except 4, 5, and 6  
cut -d',' -f1 file.csv extract first field from a CSV

# [VERSION](#VERSION)

v(uutils coreutils) 0.12.0

2026-09-30

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Document: cut(1) from uutils 0.12.0-r1 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://github.com/uutils/coreutils