tabs(1) [mojave man page]

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

tabs(1) 						      General Commands Manual							   tabs(1)

NAME

       tabs - set tabs on a terminal

SYNOPSIS

       tabs [-v[n]] [-ahuUV] file...

DESCRIPTION

       The  tabs program clears and sets tab-stops on the terminal.  This uses the terminfo clear_all_tabs and set_tab capabilities.  If either is
       absent, tabs is unable to clear/set tab-stops.  The terminal should be configured to use hard tabs, e.g.,

	      stty tab0

OPTIONS

   General Options
       -Tname
	    Tell tabs which terminal type to use.  If this option is not given, tabs will use the $TERM environment variable.  If that is not set,
	    it will use the ansi+tabs entry.

       -d   The  debugging  option  shows  a ruler line, followed by two data lines.  The first data line shows the expected tab-stops marked with
	    asterisks.	The second data line shows the actual tab-stops, marked with asterisks.

       -n   This option tells tabs to check the options and run any debugging option, but not to modify the terminal settings.

       The tabs program processes a single list of tab stops.  The last option to be processed which defines a list is the one that determines the
       list to be processed.

   Implicit Lists
       Use a single number as an option, e.g., "-5" to set tabs at the given interval (in this case 1, 6, 11, 16, 21, etc.).  Tabs are repeated up
       to the right margin of the screen.

       Use "-0" to clear all tabs.

       Use "-8" to set tabs to the standard interval.

   Explicit Lists
       An explicit list can be defined after the options (this does not use a "-").  The values in the list must be in increasing  numeric  order,
       and greater than zero.  They are separated by a comma or a blank, for example,

	      tabs 1,6,11,16,21
	      tabs 1 6 11 16 21
       Use a '+' to treat a number as an increment relative to the previous value, e.g.,

	      tabs 1,+5,+5,+5,+5
       which is equivalent to the 1,6,11,16,21 example.

   Predefined Tab-Stops
       X/Open defines several predefined lists of tab stops.

       -a   Assembler, IBM S/370, first format

       -a2  Assembler, IBM S/370, second format

       -c   COBOL, normal format

       -c2  COBOL compact format

       -c3  COBOL compact format extended

       -f   FORTRAN

       -p   PL/I

       -s   SNOBOL

       -u   UNIVAC 1100 Assembler

PORTABILITY

       X/Open describes a +m option, to set a terminal's left-margin.  Very few of the entries in the terminal database provide this capability.

       The -d (debug) and -n (no-op) options are extensions not provided by other implementations.

       Documentation  for  other  implementations states that there is a limit on the number of tab stops.  While some terminals may not accept an
       arbitrary number of tab stops, this implementation will attempt to set tab stops up to the right margin of the screen, if  the  given  list
       happens to be that long.

SEE ALSO

       tset(1), infocmp(1), ncurses(3NCURSES), terminfo(5).

       This describes ncurses version 5.9 (patch 20110404).

																	   tabs(1)