NAME

column - columnate lists

SYNOPSIS

column [options] file...

DESCRIPTION

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

OPTIONS

-c, --columns width: Output is formatted to a width specified as number of characters.
-t, --table: 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 separator. Table output is useful for pretty-printing.
-s, --separator separators: Specify possible table delimiters (default is whitespace).
-o, --output-separator separators: Specify table output delimiter (default is two whitespaces).
-x, --fillrows: Fill columns before filling rows.
-h, --help: Print help and exit.

ENVIRONMENT

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

EXAMPLES

sed 's/#.*//' /etc/fstab | column -t

BUGS

The util-linux version 2.23 changed -s option to be non-greedy, for example:

$ printf "a:b:c\n1::3\n" | column  -t -s ':'

old output:

a  b  c
1  3

new output (since util-linux 2.23)

a  b  c
1     3

HISTORY

The column command appeared in 4.3BSD-Reno.

AVAILABILITY

The column command is part of the util-linux package and is available from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.