# theryangeary/choose

A human-friendly and fast alternative to cut (and sometimes awk)

Repository: https://github.com/theryangeary/choose
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/choose
Language: Rust
License: GPL-3.0
License Family: copyleft
Last push: 2026-06-11T13:02:35+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 66/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 87, release rhythm 20, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2547, "days_push": 83, "days_rel": 373, "gap_med": 164.0, "n_releases_24m": 3}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2266, forks 47 (observed 2026-08-28T04:06:32.708885+00:00)

## What it is
Choose is a fast, human-friendly command-line utility written in Rust for selecting fields or character ranges from each line of input, serving as an intuitive alternative to cut and simple awk usage. It supports Python-slice-like syntax, negative indexing, reverse ranges, and regex field separators.

## Use cases
- extract specific fields from lines of text in the shell
- replace confusing cut syntax with intuitive field selection
- print the nth column of a file quickly
- split lines by a custom regex separator
- select a range of fields from each line including negative indexing
- avoid writing awk one-liners for simple field extraction

## When to choose
- you need quick, readable field selection in shell pipelines
- you want negative indexing or reverse ranges that cut lacks
- you need regex-based field separators with simple syntax
- you want faster performance than awk for simple field extraction

## When to avoid
- you need full text-processing power like associative arrays or complex logic - use awk
- you need a drop-in cut replacement with identical flags
- you need multi-file aggregation or reporting features

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: parser, developer-tools, cli
- domain: developer-tools, files
- platform: windows, cli, rust
- tags: text-processing, cut-alternative, awk-alternative, field-selection, shell-utility, unix-tools, command-line, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- theryangeary/choose (main) score 66

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:32.708885+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T02:42:23.325722+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/theryangeary/choose (fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:32.708885+00:00, sha b460fa0c3b28)
  - registry_crates: https://crates.io/api/v1/crates/choose (fetched 2026-08-29T10:22:34.723238+00:00, sha 4f7ac448ea29)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.