xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/column/column.1 (revision aa1a8ff2d6dbc51ef058f46f3db5a8bb77967145)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990, 1993
2.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
6.\" are met:
7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
8.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
10.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
11.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
12.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
13.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
14.\"    without specific prior written permission.
15.\"
16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
17.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
18.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
19.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
20.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
21.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
22.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
23.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
24.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
25.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
26.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
27.\"
28.Dd July 29, 2004
29.Dt COLUMN 1
30.Os
31.Sh NAME
32.Nm column
33.Nd columnate lists
34.Sh SYNOPSIS
35.Nm
36.Op Fl tx
37.Op Fl c Ar columns
38.Op Fl s Ar sep
39.Op Ar
40.Sh DESCRIPTION
41The
42.Nm
43utility formats its input into multiple columns.
44Rows are filled before columns.
45Input is taken from
46.Ar file
47operands, or, by default, from the standard input.
48Empty lines are ignored.
49.Pp
50The options are as follows:
51.Bl -tag -width indent
52.It Fl c
53Output is formatted for a display
54.Ar columns
55wide.
56.It Fl s
57Specify a set of characters to be used to delimit columns for the
58.Fl t
59option.
60.It Fl t
61Determine the number of columns the input contains and create a table.
62Columns are delimited with whitespace, by default, or with the characters
63supplied using the
64.Fl s
65option.
66Useful for pretty-printing displays.
67.It Fl x
68Fill columns before filling rows.
69.El
70.Sh ENVIRONMENT
71The
72.Ev COLUMNS , LANG , LC_ALL
73and
74.Ev LC_CTYPE
75environment variables affect the execution of
76.Nm
77as described in
78.Xr environ 7 .
79.Sh EXIT STATUS
80.Ex -std
81.Sh EXAMPLES
82.Dl (printf \&"PERM LINKS OWNER GROUP SIZE MONTH DAY \&"\ \&;\ \&\e
83.Dl printf \&"HH:MM/YEAR NAME\en\&"\ \&;\ \&\e
84.Dl ls -l \&| sed 1d) \&| column -t
85.Sh SEE ALSO
86.Xr colrm 1 ,
87.Xr ls 1 ,
88.Xr paste 1 ,
89.Xr sort 1
90.Sh HISTORY
91The
92.Nm
93command appeared in
94.Bx 4.3 Reno .
95.Sh BUGS
96Input lines are limited to
97.Dv LINE_MAX
98(2048) bytes in length.
99