1COLUMN(1) User Commands COLUMN(1)
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6 column - columnate lists
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9 column [options] file...
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12 The column utility formats its input into multiple columns. Rows are
13 filled before columns. Input is taken from file or, by default, from
14 standard input. Empty lines are ignored.
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17 -c, --columns width
18 Output is formatted to a width specified as number of characā
19 ters.
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21 -t, --table
22 Determine the number of columns the input contains and create a
23 table. Columns are delimited with whitespace, by default, or
24 with the characters supplied using the separator. Table output
25 is useful for pretty-printing.
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27 -s, --separator separators
28 Specify possible table delimiters (default is whitespace).
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30 -o, --output-separator separators
31 Specify table output delimiter (default is two whitespaces).
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33 -x, --fillrows
34 Fill columns before filling rows.
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36 -h, --help
37 Print help and exit.
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40 The environment variable COLUMNS is used to determine the size of the
41 screen if no other information is available.
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44 sed 's/#.*//' /etc/fstab | column -t
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47 The util-linux version 2.23 changed -s option to be non-greedy, for
48 example:
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50 $ printf "a:b:c\n1::3\n" | column -t -s ':'
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52 old output:
53 a b c
54 1 3
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56 new output (since util-linux 2.23)
57 a b c
58 1 3
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61 colrm(1), ls(1), paste(1), sort(1)
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64 The column command appeared in 4.3BSD-Reno.
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67 The column command is part of the util-linux package and is available
68 from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.
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72util-linux October 2010 COLUMN(1)