COLUMN(1)		  BSD General Commands Manual		     COLUMN(1)

NAME
     column - columnate lists

SYNOPSIS
     column [-ntx] [-c columns] [-s sep] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION
     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.

     -n      By default, the column command will merge multiple adjacent
	     delimiters into a single delimiter when using the -t option; this
	     option disables that behavior.

     -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.

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

ENVIRONMENT
     COLUMNS  The environment variable COLUMNS is used to determine the size
	      of the screen if no other information is available.

EXAMPLES
     To add headings to the output of ls(1):

	   (echo "PERM LINKS OWNER GROUP SIZE MONTH DAY HH:MM/YEAR NAME"; \
	   LANG=C ls -l | sed 1d) | column -t

     To print the wordlist in columns:

	   column /usr/share/dict/words

     The previous examples fills rows before columns (the first column might
     start with aardvark, while the second with mighty). To fill columns
     before rows (such that the first line might contain aardvark and abacus):

	   column -x /usr/share/dict

SEE ALSO
     colrm(1), ls(1), paste(1), sort(1)

HISTORY
     The column command appeared in 4.3BSD-Reno.

BSD			      September 21, 2003			   BSD