EXPAND(1) | General Commands Manual | EXPAND(1) |
expand
, unexpand
— expand tabs to spaces, and vice versa
expand |
[-t tabstop]
[-t tab1,tab2,...,tabn]
[file ...] |
unexpand |
[-a ] [-t
tab1,tab2,...,tabn] [file
...] |
expand
processes the named files or the
standard input writing the standard output with tabs changed into blanks.
Backspace characters are preserved into the output and decrement the column
count for tab calculations. expand
is useful for
pre-processing character files (before sorting, looking at specific columns,
etc.) that contain tabs.
If a single tabstop argument is given, then tabs are set tabstop spaces apart instead of the default 8. If multiple tabstops are given then the tabs are set at those specific columns.
unexpand
puts tabs back into the data from
the standard input or the named files and writes the result on the standard
output.
Option (with unexpand
only):
-a
-a
option is given, then
tabs are inserted whenever they would compress the resultant file by
replacing two or more characters.The expand
command appeared in
1BSD.
December 20, 2008 | NetBSD 10.99 |