xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/expand/expand.1 (revision cbb3ec25236ba72f91cbdf23f8b78b9d1af0cedf)
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28.\"	@(#)expand.1	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/9/93
29.\"
30.Dd June 6, 2015
31.Dt EXPAND 1
32.Os
33.Sh NAME
34.Nm expand ,
35.Nm unexpand
36.Nd expand tabs to spaces, and vice versa
37.Sh SYNOPSIS
38.Nm
39.Oo
40.Fl t
41.Sm off
42.Ar tab1 , tab2 , ... , tabn
43.Sm on
44.Oc
45.Op Ar
46.Nm unexpand
47.Oo
48.Fl a | t
49.Sm off
50.Ar tab1 , tab2 , ... , tabn
51.Sm on
52.Oc
53.Op Ar
54.Sh DESCRIPTION
55The
56.Nm
57utility processes the named files or the standard input writing
58the standard output with tabs changed into blanks.
59Backspace characters are preserved into the output and decrement
60the column count for tab calculations.
61The
62.Nm
63utility is useful for pre-processing character files
64(before sorting, looking at specific columns, etc.) that
65contain tabs.
66.Pp
67The
68.Nm unexpand
69utility puts tabs back into the data from the standard input or the named
70files and writes the result on the standard output.
71.Pp
72The following options are available:
73.Bl -tag -width indent
74.It Fl a
75.Nm ( unexpand
76only.)
77By default, only leading blanks and tabs
78are reconverted to maximal strings of tabs.
79If the
80.Fl a
81option is given, then tabs are inserted whenever they would compress the
82resultant file by replacing two or more characters.
83.It Fl t \&Sm Ar tab1 , tab2 , ... , tabn \&Sm
84Set tab stops at column positions
85.Ar tab1 , tab2 , ... , tabn .
86If only a single number is given, tab stops are set that number of
87column positions apart instead of the default number of 8.
88.El
89.Sh ENVIRONMENT
90The
91.Ev LANG , LC_ALL
92and
93.Ev LC_CTYPE
94environment variables affect the execution of
95.Nm
96and
97.Nm unexpand
98as described in
99.Xr environ 7 .
100.Sh EXIT STATUS
101.Ex -std expand unexpand
102.Sh STANDARDS
103The
104.Nm
105and
106.Nm unexpand
107utilities conform to
108.St -p1003.1-2001 .
109.Sh HISTORY
110The
111.Nm
112utility first appeared in
113.Bx 1 .
114