topaschart cut error

Well it might be installed but we are not supposed to make the box do anything other than backup and set up printers. I will followup with the vendor on if we can start running collections that way as well, as the vendor is telling us it is not there software and it is either our disks or something else that we need to look into. hence me trying to analyze the topas files.
I just securely sent you an example file.

Additional Details. while the script still does not run correctly when I comment out line 412, the specific error goes away.

This problem also appears with version 5 of topaschart as well as it also give the same cut error for line 412 is identical and produces the same errors. I know it is line 412 because when I comment it out the cut error goes away.

I was doing a little more debugging and echo a bunch of variable to standard error and I see the script greps for "^LAN," in the $INPUT file, to eventually write to $NET and maybe the file format has been switched from a text file to a binary as when I grep the original topas file or the file that is the INPUT files (/tmp/topaschart.input.#....) for just LAN both return "Binary file" Filename "matches" Instead of data being sent into the the topaschart.net file which ends up being zero lines/k in size.

debug checking parameters
INPUT = /tmp/topaschart.input.10692
post sed ... ORGINAL to INPUT
INPUT - /tmp/topaschart.input.10692
NET = /tmp/topaschart.net.10692
integer columns = 0
integer nets = 0
integer KBcols = 2
DEBUG integer Frame1cols = 3
integer Frame2cols = 2
cut: invalid decreasing range
Try 'cut --help' for more information.

~/topaschart.folder]$ grep LAN /tmp/topaschart.input.10692
Binary file /tmp/topaschart.input.10692 matches

~/topaschart.folder]$ wc -l /tmp/topaschart.net.10692
0 /tmp/topaschart.net.10692

Please remove this attachement from this case. I securely sent it to you, so that I didn't have to sanitize it for public view.

Okay based on your post I think the problems are user errors based on me not tripping the usage information or finding documentation making it clear as to how to use the program. I was unfortunetally running topas chart directly on the topasrec outputted .topas file not knowing I needed to do a topasout -a yourfile.topas to create a yourfile.topas.csv file. Base on this newfound knowledge when I converted the file on my aix box using topasout and run on the yourfile.topas.out it not suprising works without any cut errors on both my AIX and my linux box.

Here are a few possible ways it might be clear to an end user that doesn't currently trip the usage issue to help them with this situation.

1. Possible very early in the script test to see if the file is a binary file or not possibly using "file" command on the the input file and parse the output either looking for stuff that makes it clear the file not a binary files.
   Maybe have it accept the file as okay if after the colon it finds the exact phrase of "commands test" or "ASCII text." Or maybe have it reject the file if it finds the exact phrase of "data" or "ASCII text"
   regardless of which logic is used, have it tell the end users that the file is not of the correct format and output the Usage information that comes out when you run a bare topaschart or topas chart with a bad value.

These are the outputs of my file on my .topas and topas.csv
outputs of file myfilename.topas files.
AIX:
myfilename.topas: data or International Language text
RHEL 7:
myfilename.topas: data
Outputs of file myfilename.topas.csv
AIX:
myfilename.topas.csv: commands text
RHEL 7:
myfilename.topas.csv: ASCII text

1. Get a little more fancy with the previous and if the file type is binary, check if topasout exists on the box (e.g. for power linux and AIX boxes), and have it run topasout on the input file to make a .csv version of it replacing INPUT with that file and continue. If topas out does not exist, then error out that the files is not of the correct format and either tell them how explicitly in one line how to correct it or output the usage block.

3. Add some documentation to both the start of the file basically explaining what the usage says about wanting a .csv file.

4. Possibly add a topaschart_readme file to the tarball, explaining how to use the program and that it expects a topas csv file that can be ceated using topasout - yourfilename to create a usable yourfile.topas.csv

5. Add some usage inforamtion to the sourceforge pages about how to use topaschart and what is expected.

6. Regardles of the above due some data sanity checking mid script, or instance that the .topaschart.net.# topaschar.info.#,topaschart.netfr.#, topaschart.netkb.# and topaschart.tmp.# files are not empty/zero k in size. If they are zero k in size put up an error message that the input file apears to not be a properly formated topas.csv file and output the usage information to try to help the user.

Not that it is needed but here is the output of the commands you wanted me to run.
which cut
/usr/bin/cut

ls -al /usr/bin/cut
-r-xr-xr-x 1 bin bin 7045 Jun 01 2015 /usr/bin/cut

lslpp -w /usr/bin/cut
File Fileset Type

/usr/bin/cut bos.rte.edit File

for the RHEL 7 linux box I attempted to run this on after AIX failed.
]$ which cut
/usr/bin/cut

]$ ls -al /usr/bin/cut
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 41584 Jul 21 2020 /usr/bin/cut

]$ yum provides cut
... {Removed for brevity yum updating caches}....

coreutils-8.22-11.el7.x86_64 : A set of basic GNU tools commonly used in shell scripts
Repo : rhel-7-server-rpms
Matched from:
Filename : /bin/cut

...{removed other core-utils versions for brevity No other packages available to the system provides cut}

coreutils-8.22-24.el7_9.2.x86_64 : A set of basic GNU tools commonly used in shell scripts
Repo : installed
Matched from:
Filename : /usr/bin/cut

I don't know how I overlooked the bold type in the page you referenced, https://nmon.sourceforge.io/pmwiki.php?n=Site.TOPASchart, however I did. As I mentioned above, I don't think I am the first person to fall victim to trying to pump the binary file in, so it really may not be overkill to check for an reject binary files. Since this was our first time using this, I have created some internal documentation on using this so for my team this hopefully won't be a problem again.

Aslso thank you for making topaschart, its output is helpful for investigating issues that happened in the past.