How Can I Use Cut to Extract Different Version Number Styles?

You could totally use 'IFS' to read the version parts separately. For example, try this: 'IFS=.' read major minor patch rest <<< "$version"; echo "$major.$minor". It's a simple way to get those elements out without too much hassle!

Just a heads-up, extracting '2.4' from '2.45' is usually not relevant since versioning often jumps around. So, while you can pull those parts using tools like 'cut', be careful about how you interpret them. Sometimes it's best not to break them apart too much!

Honestly, if you're open to alternatives, 'awk', 'sed', and 'grep' can do the same job without all the fuss of 'cut'. They're super versatile and might make your life easier. If you really wanna stick with bash, consider using regex for capturing groups to directly handle both formats.

For quick versions, using 'cut' is straightforward: 'echo 3.5.2 | cut -d. -f1' gives you '3', and 'echo 3.5.2 | cut -d. -f1,2' gives you '3.5'. For '2.45', you'd do 'echo 2.45 | cut -d. -f1'. But to get '2.4', it's a bit trickier. You can try something like this:

```bash
m=$(echo 2.45 | cut -d. -f1)
n=$(echo 2.45 | cut -d. -f2 | cut -c1)
echo "$m.$n"
```
It’s not exactly one command, but it'll do the job.