GNU bug report logs - #22236
Not exactly a bug...

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From: Todd Shandelman <todd.shandelman <at> gmail.com>
To: 22236 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#22236: Not exactly a bug...
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 2015 12:37:57 -0600

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Hi,

I love your products.

I am using the 'uniq' command line utility on Cygwin, where I do most of my
development work.

$ uniq --version
uniq (GNU coreutils) 8.24
Packaged by Cygwin (8.24-3)
Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Written by Richard M. Stallman and David MacKenzie.
$




I feel confused about the usage options, particularly those for restricting
comparison to a limited number of initial or non-initial characters or
fields.

Observe:

$ uniq --h|egrep 'char|field'
  -f, --skip-fields=N   avoid comparing the first N fields
  -s, --skip-chars=N    avoid comparing the first N characters
  -w, --check-chars=N   compare no more than N characters in lines


...
...
...


So it looks like that for *chars*, 'uniq' has options to compare only the
first N chars, or *all but* the first N chars.

Whereas for *fields*, 'uniq' has only the option to skip the first N
fields, but has no corresponding option to compare *only* the first N
fields.

Why this lack of symmetry? And what do I do when I need that missing
functionality, to compare *only *an initial subset of fields in each line?

Ot, am I missing something?

Thanks!

Todd Shandelman
Houston, Texas

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