1.\"	$OpenBSD: column.1,v 1.10 2003/06/10 09:12:09 jmc Exp $
2.\"	$NetBSD: column.1,v 1.3 1995/03/26 09:08:28 glass Exp $
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4.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990, 1993
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31.\"     @(#)column.1	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
32.\"
33.Dd June 6, 1993
34.Dt COLUMN 1
35.Os
36.Sh NAME
37.Nm column
38.Nd columnate lists
39.Sh SYNOPSIS
40.Nm column
41.Op Fl tx
42.Op Fl c Ar columns
43.Op Fl s Ar sep
44.Op Ar
45.Sh DESCRIPTION
46The
47.Nm
48utility formats its input into multiple columns.
49Rows are filled before columns.
50Input is taken from
51.Ar file
52operands, or, by default, from the standard input.
53Empty lines are ignored.
54.Pp
55The options are as follows:
56.Bl -tag -width Ds
57.It Fl c Ar columns
58Output is formatted for a display
59.Ar columns
60wide.
61.It Fl s Ar sep
62Specify a set of characters to be used to delimit columns for the
63.Fl t
64option.
65.It Fl t
66Determine the number of columns the input contains and create a table.
67Columns are delimited with whitespace, by default, or with the characters
68supplied using the
69.Fl s
70option.
71Useful for pretty-printing displays.
72.It Fl x
73Fill columns before filling rows.
74.El
75.Pp
76The
77.Nm
78utility exits 0 on success or >0 if an error occurred.
79.Sh ENVIRONMENT
80.Bl -tag -width COLUMNS
81.It Ev COLUMNS
82The environment variable
83.Ev COLUMNS
84is used to determine the size of
85the screen if no other information is available.
86.El
87.Sh EXAMPLES
88.Dl (printf \&"PERM\ LINKS\ OWNER\ GROUP\ SIZE\ MONTH\ DAY\ HH:MM/YEAR\ NAME\en\&"\ \&; ls -l\ \&| sed 1d) \&| column -t
89.Sh SEE ALSO
90.Xr colrm 1 ,
91.Xr ls 1 ,
92.Xr paste 1 ,
93.Xr sort 1
94.Sh HISTORY
95The
96.Nm
97command appeared in
98.Bx 4.3 Reno .
99