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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | ENVIRONMENT | EXAMPLES | BUGS | SEE ALSO | HISTORY | AVAILABILITY | COLOPHON |
COLUMN(1) User Commands COLUMN(1)
column - columnate lists
column [options] [file...]
The column utility formats its input into multiple columns. The util
support three modes:
columns are filled before rows
This is the default mode (required by backward compatibility).
rows are filed before columns
This mode is enabled by option -x, --fillrows
table Determine the number of columns the input contains and create
a table. This mode is enabled by option -t, --table and
columns formatting is possible to modify by --table-* options.
Use this mode if not sure.
Input is taken from file, or otherwise from standard input. Empty
lines are ignored.
The argument columns for --table-* options is comma separated list of
the column names as defined by --table-columns or it's column number
in order as specified by input. It's possible to mix names and
numbers.
-J, --json
Use JSON output format to print the table, the option
--table-columns is required and the option --table-name is
recommended.
-c, --output-width width
Output is formatted to a width specified as number of
characters. The original name of this option is --columns;
this name is deprecated since v2.30. Note that input longer
than width is not truncated by default.
-o, --output-separator string
Specify the columns delimiter for table output (default is two
spaces).
-s, --separator separators
Specify the possible input item delimiters (default is
whitespace).
-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.
-N, --table-columns names
Specify the columns names by comma separated list of names.
The names are used for the table header or to addres column in
option arguments.
-R, --table-right columns
Right align text in the specified columns.
-T, --table-truncate columns
Specify columns where is allowed to truncate text when
necessary, otherwise very long table entries may be printed on
multiple lines.
-E, --table-noextreme columns
Specify columns where is possible to ignore unusually long
(longer than average) cells when calculate column width. The
option has impact to the width calculation and table
formatting, but the printed text is not affected.
The option is used for the last visible column by default.
-e, --table-header-repeat
Print header line for each page.
-W, --table-wrap columns
Specify columns where is possible to use multi-line cell for
long text when necessary.
-H, --table-hide columns
Don't print specified columns.
-O, --table-order columns
Specify columns order on output.
-n, --table-name name
Specify the table name used for JSON output. The defaout is
"table".
-r, --tree column
Specify column to use tree-like output. Note that the circular
dependencies and another anomalies in child and parent
relation are silently ignored.
-i, --tree-id column
Specify column with line ID to create child-parent relation.
-p, --tree-parent column
Specify column with parent ID to create child-parent relation.
-x, --fillrows
Fill rows before filling columns.
-V, --version
Display version information and exit.
-h, --help
Display help text and exit.
The environment variable COLUMNS is used to determine the size of the
screen if no other information is available.
Print fstab with header line and align number to the right:
sed 's/#.*//' /etc/fstab | column --table --table-columns SOURCE,TARGET,TYPE,OPTIONS,PASS,FREQ --table-right PASS,FREQ
Print a tree:
echo -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
1 0 A
2 1 |-AA
4 2 | |-AAA
5 2 | `-AAB
3 1 `-AB
Version 2.23 changed the -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
colrm(1), ls(1), paste(1), sort(1)
The column command appeared in 4.3BSD-Reno.
The column command is part of the util-linux package and is available
from https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.
This page is part of the util-linux (a random collection of Linux
utilities) project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/⟩. If you have a
bug report for this manual page, send it to
util-linux@vger.kernel.org. This page was obtained from the
project's upstream Git repository
⟨git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/util-linux/util-linux.git⟩ on
2017-07-05. If you discover any rendering problems in this HTML ver‐
sion of the page, or you believe there is a better or more up-to-date
source for the page, or you have corrections or improvements to the
information in this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original man‐
ual page), send a mail to man-pages@man7.org
util-linux January 2017 COLUMN(1)
Pages that refer to this page: colrm(1)