xref: /original-bsd/usr.bin/column/column.1 (revision e61fc7ea)
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	5.6 (Berkeley) 07/24/90
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.Tw Ds
35.Tp Fl c
36Output is formatted for a display
37.Ar columns
38wide.
39.Tp Fl s
40Specify a set of characters to be used to delimit columns for the
41.Fl t
42option.
43.Tp Fl t
44Determine the number of columns the input contains and create a table.
45Columns are delimited by whitespace, by default, or by the characters
46supplied using the
47.Fl s
48option.
49Useful for pretty-printing displays.
50.Tp Fl x
51Fill columns before filling rows.
52.Tp
53.Pp
54.Nm Column
55exits 0 on success, >0 if an error occurred.
56.Sh ENVIRONMENT
57.Tw Fl
58.Tp Ev COLUMNS
59The environment variable
60.Ev COLUMNS
61is used to determine the size of
62the screen if no other information is available.
63.Sh EXAMPLES
64.Dl (printf "PERM LINKS OWNER SIZE MONTH DAY HH:MM/YEAR NAME\en" \&;
65.Dl ls -l  sed 1d) \&| column -t
66.Sh SEE ALSO
67.Xr colrm 1 ,
68.Xr ls 1 ,
69.Xr paste 1 ,
70.Xr sort 1
71.Sh HISTORY
724.3 Reno BSD.
73