xref: /original-bsd/usr.bin/column/column.1 (revision ea3a8ee8)
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	5.9 (Berkeley) 12/28/91
7.\"
8.Dd
9.Os
10.Dt COLUMN 1
11.Sh NAME
12.Nm column
13.Nd columnate lists
14.Sh SYNOPSIS
15.Nm column
16.Op Fl tx
17.Op Fl c Ar columns
18.Op Fl s Ar sep
19.Op Ar
20.Sh DESCRIPTION
21The
22.Nm column
23utility formats its input into multiple columns.
24Rows are filled before columns.
25Input is taken from
26.Ar file
27operands, or, by default, from the standard input.
28Empty lines are ignored.
29.Pp
30The options are as follows:
31.Bl -tag -width Ds
32.It Fl c
33Output is formatted for a display
34.Ar columns
35wide.
36.It Fl s
37Specify a set of characters to be used to delimit columns for the
38.Fl t
39option.
40.It Fl t
41Determine the number of columns the input contains and create a table.
42Columns are delimited with whitespace, by default, or with the characters
43supplied using the
44.Fl s
45option.
46Useful for pretty-printing displays.
47.It Fl x
48Fill columns before filling rows.
49.El
50.Pp
51.Nm Column
52exits 0 on success, >0 if an error occurred.
53.Sh ENVIRONMENT
54.Bl -tag -width COLUMNS
55.It Ev COLUMNS
56The environment variable
57.Ev COLUMNS
58is used to determine the size of
59the screen if no other information is available.
60.El
61.Sh EXAMPLES
62.Dl (printf \&"PERM LINKS OWNER SIZE MONTH DAY HH:MM/YEAR NAME\en\&"\ \&;\ \&\e
63.Dl ls -l \&| sed 1d) \&| column -t
64.Sh SEE ALSO
65.Xr colrm 1 ,
66.Xr ls 1 ,
67.Xr paste 1 ,
68.Xr sort 1
69.Sh HISTORY
70The
71.Nm
72command appeared in
73.Bx 4.3 Reno .
74