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1.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990 The Regents of the University of California.
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32.\" @(#)column.1 5.8 (Berkeley) 3/14/91
33.\"
34.Dd March 14, 1991
35.Os
36.Dt COLUMN 1
37.Sh NAME
38.Nm column
39.Nd columnate lists
40.Sh SYNOPSIS
41.Nm column
42.Op Fl c Ns Ar columns
43.Op Fl s Ns Ar sep
44.Op Fl tx
45.Op Ar
46.Sh DESCRIPTION
47The
48.Nm column
49utility formats its input into multiple columns.
50Rows are filled before columns.
51Input is taken from
52.Ar file
53operands, or, by default, from the standard input.
54Empty lines are ignored.
55.Pp
56The options are as follows:
57.Bl -tag -width Ds
58.It Fl c
59Output is formatted for a display
60.Ar columns
61wide.
62.It Fl s
63Specify a set of characters to be used to delimit columns for the
64.Fl t
65option.
66.It Fl t
67Determine the number of columns the input contains and create a table.
68Columns are delimited with whitespace, by default, or with the characters
69supplied using the
70.Fl s
71option.
72Useful for pretty-printing displays.
73.It Fl x
74Fill columns before filling rows.
75.El
76.Pp
77.Nm Column
78exits 0 on success, >0 if an error occurred.
79.Sh ENVIRONMENT
80.Bl -tag -width COLUMNS
81.It Ev COLUMNS
82The environment variable
83.Ev COLUMNS
84is used to determine the size of
85the screen if no other information is available.
86.El
87.Sh EXAMPLES
88.Dl (printf \&"PERM LINKS OWNER SIZE MONTH DAY HH:MM/YEAR NAME\en\&"\ \&;
89.Dl ls -l \&| sed 1d) \&| column -t
90.Sh SEE ALSO
91.Xr colrm 1 ,
92.Xr ls 1 ,
93.Xr paste 1 ,
94.Xr sort 1
95.Sh HISTORY
96The
97.Nm
98command appeared in
99.Bx 4.3 Reno .