1.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1990, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" %sccs.include.redist.roff% 5.\" 6.\" @(#)expand.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 06/09/93 7.\" 8.Dd 9.Dt EXPAND 1 10.Os BSD 4 11.Sh NAME 12.Nm expand , 13.Nm unexpand 14.Nd expand tabs to spaces, and vice versa 15.Sh SYNOPSIS 16.Nm expand 17.Op Fl Ns Ar tabstop 18.Op Fl Ns Ar tab1,tab2,...,tabn 19.Ar 20.Nm unexpand 21.Op Fl a 22.Ar 23.Sh DESCRIPTION 24.Nm Expand 25processes the named files or the standard input writing 26the standard output with tabs changed into blanks. 27Backspace characters are preserved into the output and decrement 28the column count for tab calculations. 29.Nm Expand 30is useful for pre-processing character files 31(before sorting, looking at specific columns, etc.) that 32contain tabs. 33.Pp 34If a single 35.Ar tabstop 36argument is given, then tabs are set 37.Ar tabstop 38spaces apart instead of the default 8. 39If multiple tabstops are given then the tabs are set at those 40specific columns. 41.Pp 42.Nm Unexpand 43puts tabs back into the data from the standard input or the named 44files and writes the result on the standard output. 45.Pp 46Option (with 47.Nm unexpand 48only): 49.Bl -tag -width flag 50.It Fl a 51By default, only leading blanks and tabs 52are reconverted to maximal strings of tabs. If the 53.Fl a 54option is given, then tabs are inserted whenever they would compress the 55resultant file by replacing two or more characters. 56.El 57.Sh HISTORY 58The 59.Nm expand 60command appeared in 61.Bx 3.0 . 62