COLUMN(1)

NAME
column - columnate lists

SYNOPSIS
column [options] [file...]

DESCRIPTION
The column utility formats its input into multiple columns. By default, rows are filled before columns. Input is taken from file, or otherwise 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 --output-separator option. Table output is useful for pretty-printing.

-s, --separator separators
    Specify the possible input item delimiters (default is whitespace).

-o, --output-separator string
    Specify the columns delimiter for table output (default is two spaces).

-x, --fillrows
    Fill columns before filling rows.

-h, --help
    Display help text 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\n1::3\n" | 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/.