1.\" $OpenBSD: column.1,v 1.13 2010/09/03 11:09:28 jmc Exp $ 2.\" $NetBSD: column.1,v 1.3 1995/03/26 09:08:28 glass Exp $ 3.\" 4.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990, 1993 5.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 6.\" 7.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 8.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 9.\" are met: 10.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 11.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 12.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 13.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 14.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 15.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 16.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 17.\" without specific prior written permission. 18.\" 19.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 20.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 21.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 22.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 23.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 24.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 25.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 26.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 27.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 28.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 29.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 30.\" 31.\" @(#)column.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93 32.\" 33.Dd $Mdocdate: September 3 2010 $ 34.Dt COLUMN 1 35.Os 36.Sh NAME 37.Nm column 38.Nd columnate lists 39.Sh SYNOPSIS 40.Nm column 41.Op Fl tx 42.Op Fl c Ar columns 43.Op Fl s Ar sep 44.Op Ar 45.Sh DESCRIPTION 46The 47.Nm 48utility formats its input into multiple columns. 49Rows are filled before columns. 50Input is taken from 51.Ar file 52operands, or, by default, from the standard input. 53Empty lines are ignored. 54.Pp 55The options are as follows: 56.Bl -tag -width Ds 57.It Fl c Ar columns 58Output is formatted for a display 59.Ar columns 60wide. 61.It Fl s Ar sep 62Specify a set of characters to be used to delimit columns for the 63.Fl t 64option. 65.It Fl t 66Determine the number of columns the input contains and create a table. 67Columns are delimited with whitespace, by default, or with the characters 68supplied using the 69.Fl s 70option. 71Useful for pretty-printing displays. 72.It Fl x 73Fill columns before filling rows. 74.El 75.Sh ENVIRONMENT 76.Bl -tag -width COLUMNS 77.It Ev COLUMNS 78The environment variable 79.Ev COLUMNS 80is used to determine the size of 81the screen if no other information is available. 82.El 83.Sh EXIT STATUS 84.Ex -std column 85.Sh EXAMPLES 86List the current working directory's contents, in detail, 87with nicely formatted headings for each of the fields: 88.Bd -literal -offset 4n 89$ (echo "PERM LINKS OWNER GROUP SIZE MONTH DAY HH:MM/YEAR NAME" ; \e 90 ls -l | sed 1d) | column -t 91.Ed 92.Sh SEE ALSO 93.Xr colrm 1 , 94.Xr ls 1 , 95.Xr paste 1 , 96.Xr sort 1 97.Sh HISTORY 98The 99.Nm 100command appeared in 101.Bx 4.3 Reno . 102