% Sep 10, 2025
NAME
====
**tuc** — cut text or bytes and keep what you need
SYNOPSIS
========
| **tuc** \[FLAGS]... \[OPTIONS]... \< input
| **tuc** \[FLAGS]... \[OPTIONS]... filepath
DESCRIPTION
===========
Cut text (or bytes) where a delimiter matches, then keep the desired parts.
FLAGS
=====
-g, \--greedy-delimiter
: Match consecutive delimiters as if it was one
-p, \--compress-delimiter
: Print only the first delimiter of a sequence
-s, \--only-delimited
: Print only lines containing the delimiter
-V, \--version
: Print version information
-z, \--zero-terminated
: Line delimiter is NUL (\0), not LF (\\n)
-h, \--help
: Print this help and exit
-m, \--complement
: Invert fields (e.g. \'2\' becomes \'1,3:\')
-j, \--(no-)join
: Print selected parts with delimiter in between
\--json
: Print fields as a JSON array of strings
\--no-mmap
: Disable memory mapping
OPTIONS
=======
| **-f**, **\--fields** [bounds]
| Fields to keep, 1-indexed, comma separated.
| Use colon (:) to match a range (inclusive).
| Use equal (=) to apply out of bound fallback.
| Fields can be negative (-1 is the last field).
| [default 1:]
| e.g. cutting the string \'a-b-c-d\' on \'-\'
| `-f 1 => a`
| `-f 1: => a-b-c-d`
| `-f 1:3 => a-b-c`
| `-f 3,2 => cb`
| `-f 3,1:2 => ca-b`
| `-f -3:-2 => b-c`
| `-f 1,8=fallback => afallback`
| To re-apply the delimiter add -j, to replace
| it add -r (followed by the new delimiter)
| You can also format the output using {} syntax
| e.g.
| `-f '({1}, {2})' => (a, b)`
| You can escape { and } using {{ and }}.
| **-b**, **\--bytes** [bounds]
| Same as \--fields, but it keeps bytes
| **-c**, **\--characters** [bounds]
| Same as \--fields, but it keeps characters
| **-l**, **\--lines** [bounds]
| Same as \--fields, but it keeps lines
| Implies \--join. To merge lines, use \--no-join
| **-d**, **\--delimiter** [delimiter]
| Delimiter used by \--fields to cut the text
| [default: \\t]
| **-e**, **\--regex** [some regex]
| Use a regular expression as delimiter
| **-r**, **\--replace-delimiter** [new delimiter]
| Replace the delimiter with the provided text
| **-t**, **\--trim** [type]
| Trim the delimiter (greedy).
| **\--fallback-oob** [fallback]
| Generic fallback output for any field that
| cannot be found (oob stands for out of bound).
| It's overridden by any fallback assigned to a
| specific field (see -f for help)
| **-M**, **\--fixed-memory** [size]
| Read the input in chunks of <size> kilobytes.
| This allows to read lines arbitrarily large.
| Works only with single-byte delimiters,
| fields in ascending order, -z, -j, -r
OPTIONS PRECEDENCE
==================
\--trim and \--compress-delimiter are applied before \--fields or similar
MEMORY CONSUMPTION
==================
\--characters and \--fields read and allocate memory one line at a time
| \--lines allocate memory one line at a time as long as the requested fields are
| ordered and non-negative (e.g. -l 1,3:4,4,7), otherwise it allocates
| the whole input in memory (it also happens when -p or -m are being used)
\--bytes allocate the whole input in memory
| \--fixed-memory will read the input in chunks of <size> kilobytes. This
| allows to read lines arbitrarily large. Works only with single-byte
| delimiters, fields in ascending order, -z, -j, -r
COLORS
======
| Help is displayed using colors. Colors will be suppressed in the
| following circumstances:
- when the TERM environment variable is not set or set to "dumb"
- when the NO_COLOR environment variable is set (regardless of value)
BUGS
====
See GitHub Issues: <https://github.com/riquito/tuc/issues>
AUTHOR
======
Riccardo Attilio Galli <riccardo@sideralis.org>
SEE ALSO
========
**cut(1)**, **sed(1)**, **awk(1)**
