TABS(1) 						    BSD General Commands Manual 						   TABS(1)

NAME

     tabs -- set terminal tabs

SYNOPSIS

     tabs [-n | -a | -a2 | -c | -c2 | -c3 | -f | -p | -s | -u] [+m[n]] [-T type]
     tabs [-T type] [+[n]] n1[,n2,...]

DESCRIPTION

     The tabs utility displays a series of characters that clear the hardware terminal tab settings then initialises tab stops at specified posi-
     tions, and optionally adjusts the margin.

     In the first synopsis form, the tab stops set depend on the command line options used, and may be one of the predefined formats or at regular
     intervals.

     In the second synopsis form, tab stops are set at positions n1, n2, etc.  If a position is preceded by a '+', it is relative to the previous
     position set.  No more than 20 positions may be specified.

     If no tab stops are specified, the ``standard'' UNIX tab width of 8 is used.

     The options are as follows:

     -n      Set a tab stop every n columns.  If n is 0, the tab stops are cleared but no new ones are set.

     -a      Assembler format (columns 1, 10, 16, 36, 72).

     -a2     Assembler format (columns 1, 10, 16, 40, 72).

     -c      COBOL normal format (columns 1, 8, 12, 16, 20, 55)

     -c2     COBOL compact format (columns 1, 6, 10, 14, 49)

     -c3     COBOL compact format (columns 1, 6, 10, 14, 18, 22, 26, 30, 34, 38, 42, 46, 50, 54, 58, 62, 67).

     -f      FORTRAN format (columns 1, 7, 11, 15, 19, 23).

     -p      PL/1 format (columns 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, 21, 25, 29, 33, 37, 41, 45, 49, 53, 57, 61).

     -s      SNOBOL format (columns 1, 10, 55).

     -u      Assembler format (columns 1, 12, 20, 44).

     +m[n], +[n]
	     Set an n character left margin, or 10 if n is omitted.

     -T type
	     Output escape sequence for the terminal type type.

ENVIRONMENT

     The LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE and TERM environment variables affect the execution of tabs as described in environ(7).

     The -T option overrides the setting of the TERM environment variable.  If neither TERM nor the -T option are present, tabs will fail.

EXIT STATUS

     The tabs utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

SEE ALSO

     expand(1), stty(1), tput(1), unexpand(1), termcap(5)

STANDARDS

     The tabs utility conforms to IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (``POSIX.1'').

HISTORY

     A tabs utility appeared in PWB UNIX.  This implementation was introduced in FreeBSD 5.0.

BUGS

     The current termcap(5) database does not define the 'ML' (set left soft margin) capability for any terminals.

BSD
								   May 20, 2002 							       BSD