table of contents
COL(1) | General Commands Manual | COL(1) |
NAME¶
col
— filter
reverse line feeds from input
SYNOPSIS¶
col |
[-bfpx ] [-l
num] |
DESCRIPTION¶
Col
filters out reverse (and half reverse)
line feeds so the output is in the correct order with only forward and half
forward line feeds, and replaces white-space characters with tabs where
possible. This can be useful in processing the output of
nroff(1) and tbl(1).
Col
reads from standard input and writes
to standard output.
The options are as follows:
-b
- Do not output any backspaces, printing only the last character written to each column position.
-f
- Forward half line feeds are permitted (``fine'' mode). Normally characters printed on a half line boundary are printed on the following line.
-p
- Force unknown control sequences to be passed through unchanged. Normally,
col
will filter out any control sequences from the input other than those recognized and interpreted by itself, which are listed below. -x
- Output multiple spaces instead of tabs.
-l
num- Buffer at least num lines in memory. By default, 128 lines are buffered.
The control sequences for carriage motion that
col
understands and their decimal values are listed
in the following table:
- ESC-7
- reverse line feed (escape then 7)
- ESC-8
- half reverse line feed (escape then 8)
- ESC-9
- half forward line feed (escape then 9)
- backspace
- moves back one column (8); ignored in the first column
- carriage return
- (13)
- newline
- forward line feed (10); also does carriage return
- shift in
- shift to normal character set (15)
- shift out
- shift to alternate character set (14)
- space
- moves forward one column (32)
- tab
- moves forward to next tab stop (9)
- vertical tab
- reverse line feed (11)
All unrecognized control characters and escape sequences are discarded.
Col
keeps track of the character set as
characters are read and makes sure the character set is correct when they
are output.
If the input attempts to back up to the last flushed line,
col
will display a warning message.
SEE ALSO¶
STANDARDS¶
The col
utility conforms to the Single
UNIX Specification, Version 2. The -l
option is an
extension to the standard.
HISTORY¶
A col
command appeared in Version 6
AT&T UNIX.
AVAILABILITY¶
The col command is part of the util-linux-ng package and is available from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux-ng/.
June 17, 1991 | Linux 5.14.0-427.18.1.el9_4.x86_64 |