From: Pádraig Brady <P@draigBrady.com>
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2022 20:55:12 +0000 (+0100)
Subject: doc: uniq: clarify -f operation
X-Git-Tag: v9.2~165
X-Git-Url: http://git.ipfire.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?a=commitdiff_plain;h=993f0d968d8c3cbf13e1439fe00aa55585af13fc;p=thirdparty%2Fcoreutils.git

doc: uniq: clarify -f operation

* doc/coreutils.texi (uniq invocation): State that leading blanks
are part of the field, and also that -f is one based.
---

diff --git a/doc/coreutils.texi b/doc/coreutils.texi
index d441012737..76f85f9d61 100644
--- a/doc/coreutils.texi
+++ b/doc/coreutils.texi
@@ -5201,9 +5201,10 @@ The program accepts the following options.  Also see @ref{Common options}.
 @opindex -f
 @opindex --skip-fields
 Skip @var{n} fields on each line before checking for uniqueness.  Use
-a null string for comparison if a line has fewer than @var{n} fields.  Fields
-are sequences of non-space non-tab characters that are separated from
-each other by at least one space or tab.
+a null string for comparison if a line has fewer than @var{n} fields.
+Fields are a sequence of blank characters followed by non-blank characters.
+Field numbers are one based, i.e., @option{-f 1} will skip the first
+field (which may optionally have leading blanks).
 
 For compatibility @command{uniq} supports a traditional option syntax
 @option{-@var{n}}.  New scripts should use @option{-f @var{n}} instead.