NAME    [Toc]    [Back]

     column - columnate lists

SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]

     column [-tx] [-c columns] [-s sep] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]

     The column utility formats its input into multiple  columns.
Rows are
     filled  before  columns.  Input is taken from file operands,
or, by default,
 from the standard input.  Empty lines are ignored.

     The options are as follows:

     -c columns
             Output is formatted for a display columns wide.

     -s sep  Specify a set of characters to be  used  to  delimit
columns for the
             -t option.

     -t       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 -s option.
Useful for
             pretty-printing displays.

     -x      Fill columns before filling rows.

     The column utility exits 0 on success or >0 if an error  occurred.

ENVIRONMENT    [Toc]    [Back]

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

EXAMPLES    [Toc]    [Back]

           (printf   "PERM  LINKS  OWNER  GROUP  SIZE  MONTH  DAY
HH:MM/YEAR NAME0 ;
           ls -l | sed 1d) | column -t

SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]

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

HISTORY    [Toc]    [Back]

     The column command appeared in 4.3BSD-Reno.

OpenBSD      3.6                           June      6,      1993