man pages section 1: User Commands

column (1)

Name

column - columnate lists

Synopsis

column [options] [file...]

Description

COLUMN(1)                        User Commands                       COLUMN(1)



NAME
       column - columnate lists

SYNOPSIS
       column [options] [file...]

DESCRIPTION
       The  column  utility  formats  its  input  into  multiple  columns.  By
       default, rows are filled before columns.  Input is taken from file,  or
       otherwise from standard input.  Empty lines are ignored.

OPTIONS
       -c, --columns width
              Output  is  formatted  to a width specified as number of charac-
              ters.

       -o, --output-separator string
              Specify the columns delimiter for table output (default  is  two
              spaces).

       -s, --separator separators
              Specify  the  possible  input item delimiters (default is white-
              space).

       -t, --table
              Determine the number of columns the input contains and create  a
              table.   Columns  are  delimited with whitespace, by default, or
              with  the  characters  supplied  using  the   --output-separator
              option.  Table output is useful for pretty-printing.

       -x, --fillrows
              Fill columns before filling rows.

       -V, --version
              Display version information and exit.

       -h, --help
              Display help text and exit.

ENVIRONMENT
       The  environment  variable COLUMNS is used to determine the size of the
       screen if no other information is available.

EXAMPLES
       sed 's/#.*//' /etc/fstab | column -t

BUGS
       Version 2.23 changed the -s option to be non-greedy, for example:

       printf "a:b:c\n1::3\n" | column  -t -s ':'

       Old output:
       a  b  c
       1  3

       New output (since util-linux 2.23):
       a  b  c
       1     3


ATTRIBUTES
       See attributes(7) for descriptions of the following attributes:


       +---------------+---------------------+
       |ATTRIBUTE TYPE |  ATTRIBUTE VALUE    |
       +---------------+---------------------+
       |Availability   | text/text-utilities |
       +---------------+---------------------+
       |Stability      | Uncommitted         |
       +---------------+---------------------+

SEE ALSO
       colrm(1), ls(1), paste(1), sort(1)

HISTORY
       The column command appeared in 4.3BSD-Reno.

AVAILABILITY
       The column command is part of the util-linux package and  is  available
       from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.



NOTES
       Source  code  for open source software components in Oracle Solaris can
       be found at https://www.oracle.com/downloads/opensource/solaris-source-
       code-downloads.html.

       This     software     was    built    from    source    available    at
       https://github.com/oracle/solaris-userland.   The  original   community
       source        was        downloaded        from        https://www.ker-
       nel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/v2.29/util-linux-2.29.tar.xz.

       Further information about this software can be found on the open source
       community website at https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux.



util-linux                         July 2014                         COLUMN(1)