Re: [RFC] linecut addition

[Steven Schubiger]

On Sun, Aug 26, 2007 at 09:07:34AM -0600, Bob Proulx wrote:
 
> Looking at this briefly this looks to be very similar to actions
> provided by sed, head and tail.  Could you describe features in
> linecut that are not present there?

An introductory word: linecut was specifically designed with solely 
one purpose in mind.

Feature comparison (should I be wrong, correct me):

Compared to sed:
 - sed doesn't easily allow for aligned line-numbering output.
 
Compared to head:
 - head always works from the beginning whereas linecut doesn't.
 
Compared to tail:
 - tail always works towards the end whereas linecut doesn't.
 
Sure, you could chain 'head | tail' (or vice versa), build a wrapper
script in awk/perl or some other script language around (s)ed or cut,
but I didn't like the idea.
 
> I also did not see any tests.

Good catch.