xref: /original-bsd/usr.bin/column/column.1 (revision 7a8f01dc)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990 The Regents of the University of California.
2.\" All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" %sccs.include.redist.man%
5.\"
6.\"     @(#)column.1	5.5 (Berkeley) 06/11/90
7.\"
8.Dd
9.Os BSD 4.4
10.Dt COLUMN 1
11.Sh NAME
12.Nm column
13.Nd columnate lists
14.Sh SYNOPSIS
15.Nm column
16.Oo
17.Op Fl t Ar x
18.Op Fl s Ar sep
19.Op Fl c Ar columns
20.Oo
21.Cx
22.Ar
23.Sh DESCRIPTION
24The
25.Nm column
26utility formats its input into multiple columns.
27Rows are filled before columns.
28Input is taken from
29.Ar file
30operands, or, by default, from the standard input.
31Empty lines are ignored.
32.Pp
33The options are as follows:
34.Tp Fl c
35Output is formatted for a display
36.Ar columns
37wide.
38.Tp Fl s
39Specify a set of characters to be used to delimit columns for the
40.Fl t
41option.
42.Tp Fl t
43Determine the number of columns the input contains and create a table.
44Columns are delimited by whitespace, by default, or by the characters
45supplied using the
46.Fl s
47option.
48Useful for pretty-printing displays.
49.Tp Fl x
50Fill columns before filling rows.
51.Tp
52.Pp
53.Nm Column
54exits 0 on success, >0 if an error occurred.
55.Sh ENVIRONMENT
56.Tp Ar COLUMNS
57The environmental variable COLUMNS is used to determine the size of
58the screen if no other information is available.
59.Sh EXAMPLES
60.Dl (printf "PERM LINKS OWNER SIZE MONTH DAY HH:MM/YEAR NAME\en";
61.Dl ls -l  sed 1d)  column -t
62.Sh SEE ALSO
63.Xr colrm 1 ,
64.Xr ls 1 ,
65.Xr paste 1 ,
66.Xr sort 1
67.Sh HISTORY
684.4 BSD.
69