why does "cut" print fields in original order?

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Wed, 21 Nov 2007, Frank Cox wrote:

> On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 01:44:26 -0500 (EST)
> "Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday at crashcourse.ca> wrote:
>
> > i understand that that's not indicated on the man page.  on the
> > other hand, is there any reason that it *wasn't* done that way?
> > it would seem that that would be an obvious enhancement and,
> > certainly, that would be more intuitive behaviour, no?
>
> It would be fairly trivial to "roll your own" if you require that
> functionality.

yes, i realize that -- i'm just baffled why that wasn't the obvious
behaviour in the first place.  i mean, i'm trying to imagine the
brainstorming session:

A:  "and if the user asks for fields 1 and 2, we'll print 1 and 2."
B:  "yup, i'm all over that."
A:  "and if he asks for 2 and 1 ... i know, we'll still print 1, then
    2.  hahahaha!  oh, man, sometimes i crack me up!"

i'm just curious what kind of thinking went into doing something so
non-intuitive.  after all, if you ask "awk" to print given fields, it
does what you expect.  i just can't imagine what sort of thinking went
into cut's behaviour, when doing it "right" the first time seems like
it would have been a no-brainer.

anyway, i know there's always awk when i want something done
correctly.

rday
--

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Robert P. J. Day
Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry
Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

http://crashcourse.ca
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