Re: [PATCH] [cut] Treat consecutive delimiters as one in cut binary

[Joe Maimon]

Jim Meyering wrote:

> Joe Maimon <address@hidden> wrote:
>  
>
> > When using the -d option I find it frustrating that arbitrary whitespace
> > ruins the field count.
> >
> > witness this script:
> >
> > dig -x $addr +noall +answer | grep -v '^;' | grep -v '$^' | expand | cut
> > -d' ' -f5 -z
> >
> > With the new option in this patch, you can rely on the behavior to
> > produce a hostname if there is one. Otherwise you cant.
> >    
>
> How about filtering the output through tr -s ' ' just before cut?
> Then your script won't have to rely on less-portable features.
>
>
>  
tr is usefull. And I would certainly use that on scripts that dont 
remain local. But this is a trivial to add feature. And it easily works 
for whatever delimiter is in use.
Thanks for your feedback and for the tip.

Joe