09-05-2011
If it was all spaces, I wrote a delimiter I called colmark to turn the vertical columns of white space into pipe marks (ignoring random spaces). You could use 'pr -et' to expand any tabs appropriately, then use colmark to chop out the fields. Colmark is simple, could be done in shell, just make an array with a member '0' for each column and set to 1 if any line not space, then use that on a second pass to change successive spaces into pipes.
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COL(1) User Commands COL(1)
NAME
col - filter reverse line feeds from input
SYNOPSIS
col [options]
DESCRIPTION
col filters out reverse (and half-reverse) line feeds so the output is in the correct order with only forward and half-forward line feeds,
and replaces white-space characters with tabs where possible. This can be useful in processing the output of nroff(1) and tbl(1).
col reads from standard input and writes to standard output.
OPTIONS
-b, --no-backspaces
Do not output any backspaces, printing only the last character written to each column position.
-f, --fine
Forward half line feeds are permitted fine mode. Normally characters printed on a half-line boundary are printed on the following
line.
-p, --pass
Force unknown control sequences to be passed through unchanged. Normally, col will filter out any control sequences from the input
other than those recognized and interpreted by itself, which are listed below.
-h, --tabs
Output tabs instead of multiple spaces.
-x, --spaces
Output multiple spaces instead of tabs.
-l, --lines number
Buffer at least number lines in memory. By default, 128 lines are buffered.
-V, --version
Output version information and exit.
-H, --help
Output help and exit.
NOTES
The control sequences for carriage motion that col understands and their decimal values are listed in the following table:
ESC-7 reverse line feed (escape then 7)
ESC-8 half reverse line feed (escape then 8)
ESC-9 half forward line feed (escape then 9)
backspace moves back one column (8); ignored in the first column
newline forward line feed (10); also does carriage return
carriage return (13)
shift in shift to normal character set (15)
shift out shift to alternate character set (14)
space moves forward one column (32)
tab moves forward to next tab stop (9)
vertical tab reverse line feed (11)
All unrecognized control characters and escape sequences are discarded.
col keeps track of the character set as characters are read and makes sure the character set is correct when they are output.
If the input attempts to back up to the last flushed line, col will display a warning message.
SEE ALSO
expand(1), nroff(1), tbl(1)
STANDARDS
The col utility conforms to the Single UNIX Specification, Version 2. The -l option is an extension to the standard.
HISTORY
A col command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.
AVAILABILITY
The col command is part of the util-linux package and is available from Linux Kernel Archive <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-
linux/>.
util-linux September 2011 COL(1)