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Kyota Nakada
Kyota Nakada

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xcut: A Flexible CLI Tool for Extracting and Filtering Text Columns

#rust #cli #regex #cut

If you've ever used the Unix cut command but wished it could do more—like filtering rows by content, handling CSV headers, or using regular expressions—then xcut might be what you're looking for.

xcut is a command-line tool written in Rust that extends the capabilities of cut, awk, and grep. It's ideal for processing logs, tabular data, or structured plain-text files with customizable delimiters and filters.

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🔧 Features

  • Column-based extraction (--cols)
  • Regex & boolean filtering (--filter)
  • Custom delimiters (--delim, --max-split)
  • Output formatting (--out-delim, --output)
  • Header skipping (--no-header)
  • head and tail-like line selection

📦 Installation

Using Homebrew (macOS/Linux): 

brew tap kyotalab/xcut
brew install xcut
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Using GitHub Releases: 

curl -LO https://github.com/kyotalab/xcut/releases/latest/download/xcut
chmod +x xcut
./xcut --help
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🚀 Examples

Extract specific columns 

xcut --input logs.txt --cols 1,3
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Filter rows using regex (e.g., lines where col 3 starts with "INFO") 

xcut --input logs.txt --filter 'col(3) =~ "^INFO"' --cols 3,4
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Handle CSV with headers 

xcut --input data.csv --delim ',' --cols 1,2 --no-header
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Output to a file and format with a delimiter 

xcut --input data.txt --cols 1,3 --out-delim ',' --output result.csv
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💡 Why Use xcut?

Unlike traditional tools, xcut gives you:

  • Regex filtering in-line
  • Logical expressions for filtering
  • Cleaner syntax for column extraction
  • Cross-platform behavior with a single binary

📚 Learn More

Give it a ⭐️ on GitHub if you find it useful!

Feel free to share your feedback or contribute to the project 🙌

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