cut: improve and shorten help text

src/uu/cut/locales/en-US.ftl

@@ -1,108 +1,33 @@
-cut-about = Prints specified byte or field columns from each line of stdin or the input files
+cut-about = Extract sections from each line of files.
 cut-usage = cut OPTION... [FILE]...
-cut-after-help = Each call must specify a mode (what to use for columns),
-  a sequence (which columns to print), and provide a data source
+cut-after-help = If no FILE is specified, reads from stdin. Use '-' as a FILE argument to include stdin.
 
-  Specifying a mode:
+  LIST is a comma-separated list of numbers or ranges:
 
-  Use --bytes (-b) or --characters (-c) to specify byte mode
+    N           only column N
+    N-          columns N through the end of the line
+    N-M         columns N through M
+    -M          columns 1 through M
 
-  Use --fields (-f) to specify field mode, where each line is broken into
-  fields identified by a delimiter character. For example for a typical CSV
-  you could use this in combination with setting comma as the delimiter
+  Examples:
 
-  Specifying a sequence:
-
-  A sequence is a group of 1 or more numbers or inclusive ranges separated
-  by a commas.
-
-  cut -f 2,5-7 some_file.txt
-
-  will display the 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 7th field for each source line
-
-  Ranges can extend to the end of the row by excluding the second number
-
-  cut -f 3- some_file.txt
-
-  will display the 3rd field and all fields after for each source line
-
-  The first number of a range can be excluded, and this is effectively the
-  same as using 1 as the first number: it causes the range to begin at the
-  first column. Ranges can also display a single column
-
-  cut -f 1,3-5 some_file.txt
-
-  will display the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th field for each source line
-
-  The --complement option, when used, inverts the effect of the sequence
-
-  cut --complement -f 4-6 some_file.txt
-
-  will display the every field but the 4th, 5th, and 6th
-
-  Specifying a data source:
-
-  If no sourcefile arguments are specified, stdin is used as the source of
-  lines to print
-
-  If sourcefile arguments are specified, stdin is ignored and all files are
-  read in consecutively if a sourcefile is not successfully read, a warning
-  will print to stderr, and the eventual status code will be 1, but cut
-  will continue to read through proceeding sourcefiles
-
-  To print columns from both STDIN and a file argument, use - (dash) as a
-  sourcefile argument to represent stdin.
-
-  Field mode options:
-
-  The fields in each line are identified by a delimiter (separator)
-
-  Set the delimiter:
-
-  Set the delimiter which separates fields in the file using the
-  --delimiter (-d) option. Setting the delimiter is optional.
-  If not set, a default delimiter of Tab will be used.
-
-  If the -w option is provided, fields will be separated by any number
-  of whitespace characters (Space and Tab). The output delimiter will
-  be a Tab unless explicitly specified. Only one of -d or -w option can be specified.
-  This is an extension adopted from FreeBSD.
-
-  Optionally filter based on delimiter:
-
-  If the --only-delimited (-s) flag is provided, only lines which
-  contain the delimiter will be printed
-
-  Replace the delimiter:
-
-  If the --output-delimiter option is provided, the argument used for
-  it will replace the delimiter character in each line printed. This is
-  useful for transforming tabular data - e.g. to convert a CSV to a
-  TSV (tab-separated file)
-
-  Line endings:
-
-  When the --zero-terminated (-z) option is used, cut sees \\0 (null) as the
-  'line ending' character (both for the purposes of reading lines and
-  separating printed lines) instead of \\n (newline). This is useful for
-  tabular data where some of the cells may contain newlines
-
-  echo 'ab\\0cd' | cut -z -c 1
-
-  will result in 'a\\0c\\0'
+    cut -f 2,5-7 file.txt             extract fields 2, 5, 6, and 7
+    cut -f 3- file.txt                extract field 3 to the end of the line
+    cut --complement -f 4-6 file.txt  extract all fields except 4, 5, and 6
+    cut -d',' -f1 file.csv            extract first field from a CSV
 
 # Help messages
-cut-help-bytes = filter byte columns from the input source
-cut-help-characters = alias for character mode
-cut-help-delimiter = specify the delimiter character that separates fields in the input source. Defaults to Tab.
-cut-help-whitespace-delimited = Use any number of whitespace (Space, Tab) to separate fields in the input source (FreeBSD extension).
-cut-help-fields = filter field columns from the input source
+cut-help-bytes = extract bytes listed in LIST
+cut-help-characters = extract characters listed in LIST
+cut-help-delimiter = use DELIM as field separator (default: Tab)
+cut-help-whitespace-delimited = use any whitespace (Space/Tab) as delimiter; ignore leading and trailing blanks with 'trimmed'
+cut-help-fields = extract fields listed in LIST
 cut-help-fields-merged = like -f, but merge adjacent delimiters; the delimiter defaults to whitespace and the output delimiter to a space
-cut-help-complement = invert the filter - instead of displaying only the filtered columns, display all but those columns
-cut-help-only-delimited = in field mode, only print lines which contain the delimiter
-cut-help-zero-terminated = instead of filtering columns based on line, filter columns based on \\0 (NULL character)
-cut-help-output-delimiter = in field mode, replace the delimiter in output lines with this option's argument
-cut-help-no-partial = with -b, don't output partial multi-byte characters
+cut-help-complement = invert selection: print all columns except the specified ones
+cut-help-only-delimited = suppress lines that do not contain the delimiter
+cut-help-zero-terminated = use NULL (\0) instead of newline as line terminator
+cut-help-output-delimiter = replace input delimiter with NEW_DELIM in output
+cut-help-no-partial = with -b, do not output partial multi-byte characters
 
 # Error messages
 cut-error-is-directory = Is a directory

tests/by-util/test_cut.rs

@@ -55,16 +55,6 @@ fn test_invalid_arg() {
     new_ucmd!().arg("--definitely-invalid").fails_with_code(1);
 }
 
-#[test]
-fn test_help_uses_plain_text_headings() {
-    new_ucmd!()
-        .arg("--help")
-        .succeeds()
-        .stdout_contains("\nSpecifying a mode:\n")
-        .stdout_contains("\nSet the delimiter:\n")
-        .stdout_does_not_contain("###");
-}
-
 #[test]
 fn test_range_error_messages() {
     // Mode-aware diagnostics for invalid ranges.