Re: [ADD TO FAQ] : cut : using space as input delimiter

[Bob Proulx]

seb_kramm wrote:
> Ah. Is that a problem ? I mean, when I talk about the space character as a 
> field-separator, to me, it's the same if there is 1 or 2 or more spaces. 

Yes.  That seems to be the problem here.

> Like in a source code, it doesn't matter how much spaces or tabs there are.

Ah...  But this isn't source code.  Source code is stream oriented
with inband control.  Cut works with data files.

Compressing runs of multiple delimiters together would make it
impossible to handle empty fields.  This is the same as for csv files.
The file format is in design an X-Y grid of rows and columns of which
some cells may be empty.

Bob