Question 1

How do I split on multiple spaces with hck?

Accepted Answer

Use the regex delimiter feature with -d '\s+' to split on one or more whitespace characters. For example, `hck -d '\s+' -f1,2 input.txt` handles it directly without needing tr.

Question 2

Does hck automatically decompress .gz files?

Accepted Answer

Yes, with the -z flag, hck will decompress .gz, .bz2, and other common formats on the fly by spawning subprocesses for tools like gzip or bzip2, similar to ripgrep's approach.

Question 3

hck or cut for simple column extraction?

Accepted Answer

hck is generally faster and more flexible, especially with regex delimiters and column reordering, as benchmarks show it outperforms cut. However, for basic fixed-string splitting in environments where cut is standard, cut might suffice.

Question 4

How to reorder columns using hck?

Accepted Answer

Specify the desired order with the -f flag in cut-style syntax: `hck -d, -f3,1,2 file.csv` outputs columns 3, 1, and 2 in that sequence, making data rearrangement straightforward.

Question 5

Can hck handle CSV files with quoted commas?

Accepted Answer

No, hck does not support quoted fields and will split on delimiters even inside quotes. For proper CSV handling, use a dedicated parser like xsv or awk with CSV-aware libraries.

Question 6

What is the performance of hck compared to awk?

Accepted Answer

Benchmarks in the README indicate hck is often faster than awk for column extraction tasks, particularly with regex delimiters, but awk remains superior for complex transformations involving conditionals or calculations.

hck

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