NAME
column - columnate lists
SYNOPSIS
column [-ntx] [-c columns] [-s sep] [file ...]
DESCRIPTION
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 Output is formatted for a display columns wide.
-s 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.
-n By default, the column command will merge multiple adjacent
delimiters into a single delimiter when using the --t option;
this option disables that behavior. This option is a Debian
GNU/Linux extension.
ENVIRONMENT
The COLUMNS, LANG, LC_ALL and LC_CTYPE environment variables affect the
execution of column as described in environ(7).
EXIT STATUS
The column utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
EXAMPLES
(printf "PERM LINKS OWNER GROUP SIZE MONTH DAY " ; \
printf "HH:MM/YEAR NAME\n" ; \
ls -l | sed 1d) | column -t
SEE ALSO
colrm(1), ls(1), paste(1), sort(1)
HISTORY
The column command appeared in 4.3BSD-Reno.
BUGS
Input lines are limited to LINE_MAX (2048) bytes in length.