COLUMN(1) User Commands COLUMN(1)
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
1::3
" | column -t -s ':'
old output:
a b c
1 3
new output (since util-linux 2.23)
a b c
1 3
SEE ALSO
colrm(1), ls(1), paste(1), sort(1)
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/.
util-linux October 2010 COLUMN(1)