man col - Man page for col
June 1, 2007 – 1:22 amCOL
Section: User Commands (1)
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BSD mandoc
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,
colwill 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
numlines 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
- 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
expand(1),
nroff(1),
tbl(1)
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.