Name

column — columnate lists

Synopsis

column [options] [ file... ]

DESCRIPTION

The column utility formats its input into multiple columns. By default, rows are filled before columns. Input is taken from file, or otherwise from standard input. Empty lines are ignored.

OPTIONS

−c, −−columns width

Output is formatted to a width specified as number of characters.

−o, −−output−separator string

Specify the columns delimiter for table output (default is two spaces).

−s, −−separator separators

Specify the possible input item delimiters (default is whitespace).

−t, −−table

Determine the number of columns the input contains and create a table. Columns are delimited with whitespace, by default, or with the characters supplied using the −−output−separator option. Table output is useful for pretty-printing.

−x, −−fillrows

Fill columns before filling rows.

−V, −−version

Display version information and exit.

−h, −−help

Display help text and exit.

ENVIRONMENT

The environment variable COLUMNS is used to determine the size of the screen if no other information is available.

EXAMPLES

sed 's/#.*//' /etc/fstab | column -t

BUGS

Version 2.23 changed the −s option to be non-greedy, for example:

printf "a:b:c\n1::3\n" | column  -t -s ':'

Old output:

a  b  c
1  3

New output (since util-linux 2.23):

a  b  c
1     3

SEE ALSO

colrm(1), ls(1), paste(1), sort(1)

HISTORY

The column command appeared in 4.3BSD-Reno.

AVAILABILITY

The column command is part of the util-linux package and is available from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.


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    (#)column.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93