From 993f0d968d8c3cbf13e1439fe00aa55585af13fc Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: =?utf8?q?P=C3=A1draig=20Brady?= Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2022 21:55:12 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] 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. --- doc/coreutils.texi | 7 ++++--- 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) 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. -- 2.47.2