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column – columnate lists

SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION ENVIRONMENT EXIT STATUS EXAMPLES SEE ALSO HISTORY BUGS

column [-tx] [-c columns] [-s sep] [file ...]

The column utility formats its input into multiple columns. Rows are filled before columns. Input is taken from file operands, or, by default, from the standard input. Empty lines are ignored.

The options are as follows:

-c
	Output is formatted for a display columns wide.
-s
	Specify a set of characters to be used to delimit columns for the -t option.
-t
	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 -s option. Useful for pretty-printing displays.
-x
	Fill columns before filling rows.

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

    (printf amp;"PERM LINKS OWNER GROUP SIZE MONTH DAY amp;" amp;; amp;\

    printf amp;"HH:MM/YEAR NAME\namp;" amp;; amp;\

    ls -l amp;| sed 1d) amp;| column -t

The column command appeared in BSD 4.3 Reno .

Input lines are limited to LINE_MAX (2048) bytes in length.