col(1)								   User Commands							    col(1)

NAME

       col - reverse line-feeds filter

SYNOPSIS

       col [-bfpx]

DESCRIPTION

       The  col  utility  reads  from the standard input and writes to the standard output. It performs the line overlays implied by reverse line-
       feeds, and by forward and reverse half-line-feeds.  Unless -x is used, all blank characters in the input will be converted to  tab  charac-
       ters  wherever  possible.  col  is  particularly  useful for filtering multi-column output made with the .rt command of nroff(1) and output
       resulting from use of the tbl(1) preprocessor.

       The ASCII control characters SO and SI are assumed by col to start and end text in an alternative character set. The character set to which
       each  input  character belongs is remembered, and on output SI and SO characters are generated as appropriate to ensure that each character
       is written in the correct character set.

       On input, the only control characters accepted are space, backspace, tab, carriage-return and newline characters, SI, SO, VT, reverse line-
       feed,  forward  half-line-feed  and reverse half-line-feed. The VT character is an alternative form of full reverse line-feed, included for
       compatibility with some earlier programs of this type. The only other characters to be copied to the output are those that are printable.

       The ASCII codes for the control functions and line-motion sequences mentioned above are as given in the table below.  ESC  stands  for  the
       ASCII escape character, with the octal code 033; ESC- means a sequence of two characters, ESC followed by the character x.

       reverse line-feed	     ESC-7
       reverse half-line-feed	     ESC-8
       forward half-line-feed	     ESC-9
       vertical-tab (VT)	     013
       start-of-text (SO)	     016
       end-of-text (SI) 	     017

OPTIONS

       -b	Assume	that  the output device in use is not capable of backspacing. In this case, if two or more characters are to appear in the
		same place, only the last one read will be output.

       -f	Although col accepts half-line motions in its input, it normally does not emit them on output. Instead,  text  that  would  appear
		between  lines	is  moved  to the next lower full-line boundary. This treatment can be suppressed by the -f (fine) option; in this
		case, the output from col may contain forward half-line-feeds (ESC-9), but will still never contain either kind  of  reverse  line
		motion.

       -p	Normally,  col	will ignore any escape sequences unknown to it that are found in its input; the -p option may be used to cause col
		to output these sequences as regular characters, subject to overprinting from reverse line motions. The  use  of  this	option	is
		highly discouraged unless the user is fully aware of the textual position of the escape sequences.

       -x	Prevent col from converting blank characters to tab characters on output wherever possible. Tab stops are considered to be at each
		column position n such that n modulo 8 equals 1.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables that  affect  the  execution  of	col:  LC_CTYPE,  LC_MESSAGES,  and
       NLSPATH.

EXIT STATUS

       The following error values are returned:

       0	Successful completion.

       >0	An error occurred.

ATTRIBUTES

       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability		     |SUNWesu			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |CSI			     |enabled			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO

       nroff(1), tbl(1), ascii(5), attributes(5), environ(5)

NOTES

       The  input format accepted by col matches the output produced by nroff with either the -T37 or -Tlp options. Use -T37 (and the -f option of
       col) if the ultimate disposition of the output of col will be a device that can interpret half-line motions, and -Tlp otherwise.

       col cannot back up more than 128 lines or handle more than 800 characters per line.

       Local vertical motions that would result in backing up over the first line of the document are ignored. As a result, the  first	line  must
       not have any superscripts.

SunOS 5.10							    1 Feb 1995								    col(1)