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 May 13, 2025 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 l Ar tblcols 39.Op Fl s Ar sep 40.Op Ar 41.Sh DESCRIPTION 42The 43.Nm 44utility formats its input into multiple columns. 45Rows are filled before columns. 46Input is taken from 47.Ar file 48operands, or, by default, from the standard input. 49Empty lines are ignored. 50.Pp 51The options are as follows: 52.Bl -tag -width indent 53.It Fl c 54Output is formatted for a display 55.Ar columns 56wide. 57.It Fl l 58When used with 59.Fl t , 60limit the table to 61.Ar tblcols 62columns in width. 63The last column will contain the rest of the line, 64including any delimiters. 65.It Fl s 66Specify a set of characters to be used to delimit columns for the 67.Fl t 68option. 69.It Fl t 70Determine the number of columns the input contains and create a table. 71Columns are delimited with whitespace, by default, or with the characters 72supplied using the 73.Fl s 74option. 75Useful for pretty-printing displays. 76.It Fl x 77Fill columns before filling rows. 78.El 79.Sh ENVIRONMENT 80The 81.Ev COLUMNS , LANG , LC_ALL 82and 83.Ev LC_CTYPE 84environment variables affect the execution of 85.Nm 86as described in 87.Xr environ 7 . 88.Sh EXIT STATUS 89.Ex -std 90.Sh EXAMPLES 91.Dl (printf \&"PERM LINKS OWNER GROUP SIZE MONTH DAY \&"\ \&;\ \&\e 92.Dl printf \&"HH:MM/YEAR NAME\en\&"\ \&;\ \&\e 93.Dl ls -l \&| sed 1d) \&| column -t 94.Sh SEE ALSO 95.Xr colrm 1 , 96.Xr ls 1 , 97.Xr paste 1 , 98.Xr sort 1 99.Sh HISTORY 100The 101.Nm 102command appeared in 103.Bx 4.3 Reno . 104.Sh BUGS 105Input lines are limited to 106.Dv LINE_MAX 107(2048) bytes in length. 108