split

Tiny binary to split strings in bash and extract certain columns with the ability to squash empty columns.

It exists because cut can't remove empty columns and I'm too stupid to remember awk-commands.

Usage

# Without giving a delimiter, it splits all whitespace
$ echo "How did that awk-command work again?" | split -c 4
awk-command

# Default-joining with one whitespace
echo "I'm................thinking" | split "."
I'm thinking

# Can rejoin with a different join-delimiter (which can be more than one char)
$ echo "How did that awk-command work again?" | split -c 1,2,3,5,6 -j '==='
How===did===that===work===again?

# Can split multi-char delimiter
$ echo "I was...like...thinking...like...how did you...like...come up with that?" | split -c 3,4 "...like..."
how did you come up with that?

# Squashes empty entries..
$ echo "I'm................thinking" | split -c 2 "."
thinking

# ..or not
$ echo "I'm................thinking" | split -k -c 17 "."
thinking

# Has the ability to use negative indices
$ echo "
Part1..................Something
Part10.................Another
Part100................Thing
Part1000...............End
" | split "." -j ": " -c 1,-1

Part1: Something
Part10: Another
Part100: Thing
Part1000: End

# Respects requested order of fields
$ echo "1 2 3 4 5 6" | cut -d " " -f 3,2,1
1 2 3
$ echo "1 2 3 4 5 6" | split -c 3,2,1
3 2 1