text-utils/column.1

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  32 .\"     @(#)column.1    8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
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  34 .TH COLUMN 1 "February 2019" "util-linux" "User Commands"
  35 .SH NAME
  36 column \- columnate lists
  37 .SH SYNOPSIS
  38 .BR column " [options]"
  39 .RI [ file ...]
  40 .SH DESCRIPTION
  41 The
  42 .B column
  43 utility formats its input into multiple columns.  The util support three modes:
  44 .TP
  45 .B columns are filled before rows
  46 This is the default mode (required by backward compatibility).
  47 .TP
  48 .B rows are filled before columns
  49 This mode is enabled by option \fB\-x, \-\-fillrows\fP
  50 .TP
  51 .B table
  52 Determine the number of columns the input contains and create a table.  This
  53 mode is enabled by option \fB\-t, \-\-table\fP and columns formatting is
  54 possible to modify by \fB\-\-table-*\fP options.  Use this mode if not sure.
  55 .PP
  56 Input is taken from \fIfile\fR, or otherwise from standard input.  Empty lines
  57 are ignored and all invalid multibyte sequences are encoded by \\x<hex> convention.
  58 .PP
  59 .SH OPTIONS
  60 The argument \fIcolumns\fP for \fB\-\-table-*\fP options is comma separated
  61 list of the column names as defined by \fB\-\-table-columns\fP or it's column
  62 number in order as specified by input. It's possible to mix names and numbers.
  63 .PP
  64 .IP "\fB\-J, \-\-json\fP"
  65 Use JSON output format to print the table, the option
  66 \fB\-\-table\-columns\fP is required and the option \fB\-\-table\-name\fP is recommended.
  67 .IP "\fB\-c, \-\-output\-width\fP \fIwidth\fP"
  68 Output is formatted to a width specified as number of characters. The original
  69 name of this option is \-\-columns; this name is deprecated since v2.30. Note that input
  70 longer than \fIwidth\fP is not truncated by default.
  71 .IP "\fB\-d, \-\-table\-noheadings\fP"
  72 Do not print header. This option allows to use logical column names on command line, but keep the header hidden when print the table.
  73 .IP "\fB\-o, \-\-output\-separator\fP \fIstring\fP"
  74 Specify the columns delimiter for table output (default is two spaces).
  75 .IP "\fB\-s, \-\-separator\fP \fIseparators\fP"
  76 Specify the possible input item delimiters (default is whitespace).
  77 .IP "\fB\-t, \-\-table\fP"
  78 Determine the number of columns the input contains and create a table.
  79 Columns are delimited with whitespace, by default, or with the characters
  80 supplied using the \fB\-\-output\-separator\fP option.
  81 Table output is useful for pretty-printing.
  82 .IP "\fB\-N, \-\-table-columns\fP \fInames\fP"
  83 Specify the columns names by comma separated list of names. The names are used
  84 for the table header or to address column in option arguments.
  85 .IP "\fB\-R, \-\-table-right\fP \fIcolumns\fP"
  86 Right align text in the specified columns.
  87 .IP "\fB\-T, \-\-table-truncate\fP \fIcolumns\fP"
  88 Specify columns where is allowed to truncate text when necessary, otherwise
  89 very long table entries may be printed on multiple lines.
  90 .IP "\fB\-E, \-\-table-noextreme\fP \fIcolumns\fP"
  91 Specify columns where is possible to ignore unusually long (longer than
  92 average) cells when calculate column width.  The option has impact to the width
  93 calculation and table formatting, but the printed text is not affected.
  94
  95 The option is used for the last visible column by default.
  96
  97 .IP "\fB\-e, \-\-table\-header\-repeat\fP"
  98 Print header line for each page.
  99 .IP "\fB\-W, \-\-table-wrap\fP \fIcolumns\fP"
 100 Specify columns where is possible to use multi-line cell for long text when
 101 necessary.
 102 .IP "\fB\-H, \-\-table-hide\fP \fIcolumns\fP"
 103 Don't print specified columns. The special placeholder '\-' may be used to
 104 hide all unnamed columns (see \-\-table-columns).
 105 .IP "\fB\-O, \-\-table-order\fP \fIcolumns\fP"
 106 Specify columns order on output.
 107 .IP "\fB\-n, \-\-table-name\fP \fIname\fP"
 108 Specify the table name used for JSON output. The default is "table".
 109 .IP "\fB\-L, \-\-table\-empty\-lines\fP"
 110 Insert empty line to the table for each empty line on input. The default
 111 is ignore empty lines at all.
 112 .IP "\fB\-r, \-\-tree\fP \fIcolumn\fP"
 113 Specify column to use tree-like output. Note that the circular dependencies and
 114 another anomalies in child and parent relation are silently ignored.
 115 .IP "\fB\-i, \-\-tree\-id\fP \fIcolumn\fP"
 116 Specify column with line ID to create child-parent relation.
 117 .IP "\fB\-p, \-\-tree\-parent\fP \fIcolumn\fP"
 118 Specify column with parent ID to create child-parent relation.
 119 .PP
 120 .IP "\fB\-x, \-\-fillrows\fP"
 121 Fill rows before filling columns.
 122 .IP "\fB\-V\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR"
 123 Display version information and exit.
 124 .IP "\fB\-h, \-\-help\fP"
 125 Display help text and exit.
 126 .SH ENVIRONMENT
 127 The environment variable \fBCOLUMNS\fR is used to determine the size of
 128 the screen if no other information is available.
 129 .SH EXAMPLE
 130 Print fstab with header line and align number to the right:
 131 .EX
 132 \fBsed 's/#.*//' /etc/fstab | column \-\-table \-\-table-columns SOURCE,TARGET,TYPE,OPTIONS,PASS,FREQ \-\-table-right PASS,FREQ\fR
 133 .EE
 134 .PP
 135 Print fstab and hide unnamed columns:
 136 .EX
 137 \fBsed 's/#.*//' /etc/fstab | column \-\-table \-\-table-columns SOURCE,TARGET,TYPE \-\-table-hide \-\fR
 138 .EE
 139 .PP
 140
 141 .PP
 142 Print a tree:
 143 .EX
 144 \fBecho \-e '1 0 A\\n2 1 AA\\n3 1 AB\\n4 2 AAA\\n5 2 AAB' | column \-\-tree-id 1 \-\-tree-parent 2 \-\-tree 3\fR
 145 1  0  A
 146 2  1  |-AA
 147 4  2  | |-AAA
 148 5  2  | `-AAB
 149 3  1  `-AB
 150 .EE
 151 .SH BUGS
 152 Version 2.23 changed the
 153 .B \-s
 154 option to be non-greedy, for example:
 155 .PP
 156 .EX
 157 \fBprintf "a:b:c\\n1::3\\n" | column \-t \-s ':'\fR
 158 .EE
 159 .PP
 160 Old output:
 161 .EX
 162 a  b  c
 163 1  3
 164 .EE
 165 .PP
 166 New output (since util-linux 2.23):
 167 .EX
 168 a  b  c
 169 1     3
 170 .EE
 171 .PP
 172 Historical versions of this tool indicated that "rows are filled before
 173 columns" by default, and that the
 174 .B \-x
 175 option reverses this. This wording did not reflect the actual behavior, and it
 176 has since been corrected (see above). Other implementations of
 177 .B column
 178 may continue to use the older documentation, but the behavior should be
 179 identical in any case.
 180 .SH SEE ALSO
 181 .BR colrm (1),
 182 .BR ls (1),
 183 .BR paste (1),
 184 .BR sort (1)
 185 .SH HISTORY
 186 The column command appeared in 4.3BSD-Reno.
 187 .SH AVAILABILITY
 188 The column command is part of the util-linux package and is available from
 189 https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.