Text Processing

seq

Print a sequence of numbers with configurable start, step, and end.

Synopsis

syntax
seq [OPTION]... [FIRST [INCREMENT]] LAST

Examples

Print numbers 1 to 10
seq 10
Print even numbers 0 to 20
seq 0 2 20
Zero-padded sequence
seq -w 01 100
Comma-separated sequence: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
seq -s', ' 1 5

Common options

FlagDescription
-wEqualize width by padding with leading zeros
-sUse specified separator (default: newline)
-fUse printf-style format

About seq

The `seq` command print a sequence of numbers with configurable start, step, and end. Text processing commands transform, format, and generate text output.

Linux's philosophy of small composable tools shines here — these commands are designed to be piped together to build complex text-processing workflows. They are indispensable for scripting, log analysis, and data transformation tasks.

The command accepts 3 commonly used flags shown above, though the full set of options is available in the man page (`man seq`). The 4 examples on this page cover typical real-world usage patterns that you can copy and adapt for your own workflows.

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