COLUMN(1) User Commands COLUMN(1)
NAME
column - columnate lists
SYNOPSIS
column [options] [file ...]
DESCRIPTION
The column utility formats its input into multiple columns. It supports
three modes:
fill columns before rows
This is the default mode (required for backwards compatibility).
fill rows before columns
This mode is enabled with the -x, --fillrows option.
create a table
Determine the number of columns the input contains and create a
table. This mode is enabled with the -t, --table option. Output is
aligned to the terminal width in interactive mode and 80 columns in
non-interactive mode (see --output-width for more details). Custom
formatting can be applied by using various --table-\* options.
Input is taken from file, or otherwise from standard input. Empty lines
are ignored and all invalid multibyte sequences are encoded with the
x<hex> convention.
OPTIONS
The argument columns for --table-\* options is a comma separated list
of user supplied names, defined with --table-column name1,name2,...,
indices of columns, as they appear in the input, beginning with 1, or
names, defined by a --table-columns attribute. It’s possible to mix
names and indices. The special placeholder '0' (e.g. -R0) may be used
to specify all columns and '-1' (e.g. -R -1) to specify the last
visible column. It’s possible to use ranges like '1-5' when addressing
columns by indices.
-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 a 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. The default is the terminal width and 80
columns in non-interactive mode. The column headers are never
truncated.
The placeholder "unlimited" (or 0) can be used to prevent
restricting output width. This is recommended for example when
redirecting output to a file.
-d, --table-noheadings
Omit printing the header. This option allows the use of user
supplied column names on the command line, but keeps the header
hidden when printing the table.
-o, --output-separator string
Column delimiter for table output (default is two spaces).
-s, --separator separators
Possible input item delimiters (default is whitespace).
-S, --use-spaces number
When not in table mode, use whitespaces instead of tabulators to
align the columns. This option specifies the minimum number of
whitespaces that separate two columns.
-t, --table
Determine the number of columns the input contains and create a
table. Columns are by default delimited with whitespace, or with
characters supplied using the --output-separator option. Table
output is useful for pretty-printing.
-C, --table-column attributes
Define a column with a comma separated list of column attributes.
This option can be used more than once, every use defines a single
column. Attributes replace some of --table- options. For example,
--table-column name=FOO,right defines a column where text is
aligned to right. The option is mutually exclusive to
--table-columns.
Supported attributes are:
name=string
Column name.
trunc
Truncate column text when necessary. The same as
--table-truncate.
right
Right align text. The same as --table-right.
width=number
Column width. It’s used only as a hint. To force it, specify
the strictwidth attribute as well.
strictwidth
Strictly follow column width= setting.
noextreme
Ignore unusually long cell width. See --table-noextreme for
more details.
wrap
Allow using a multi-line cell for long text if necessary. See
--table-wrap for more details.
hide
Don’t print the column. See --table-hide for more details.
json=type
Define column type for JSON output. Supported types are string,
number and boolean.
-N, --table-columns names
Specify column names with a comma separated list. The names are
used for the table header and column addressing in option
arguments. See also --table-column.
-l, --table-columns-limit number
Specify maximum number of input columns. The last column will
contain all remaining line data if the limit is smaller than the
number of the columns in the input data.
-R, --table-right columns
Right align text in specified columns.
-T, --table-truncate columns
Specify columns where text can be truncated 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 multi-line cells can be used for long text.
-H, --table-hide columns
Don’t print specified columns. The special placeholder '-' may be
used to hide all unnamed columns (see --table-columns).
-O, --table-order columns
Specify the output column order.
-n, --table-name name
Specify the table name used for JSON output. The default is
"table".
-m, --table-maxout
Fill all available space on output.
-L, --keep-empty-lines
Preserve whitespace-only lines in the input. The default is to
ignore all empty lines. This option’s original name was
--table-empty-lines, but has since been deprecated because it gives
the false impression that the option only applies to table mode.
-r, --tree column
Specify the column to use for a tree-like output. Note that the
circular dependencies and other anomalies in child and parent
relation are silently ignored.
-i, --tree-id column
Specify the column that contains each line’s unique child IDs for a
child-parent relation.
-p, --tree-parent column
Specify the column that contains each line’s parent IDs for a
child-parent relation.
-x, --fillrows
Fill rows before filling columns.
-h, --help
Display help text and exit.
-V, --version
Display version and exit.
ENVIRONMENT
The environment variable COLUMNS is used to determine the size of the
screen if no other information is available.
HISTORY
The column command appeared in 4.3BSD-Reno.
BUGS
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
Historical versions of this tool indicated that "rows are filled before
columns" by default, and that the -x option reverses this. This wording
did not reflect the actual behavior, and it has since been corrected
(see above). Other implementations of column may continue to use the
older documentation, but the behavior should be identical in any case.
EXAMPLES
Print fstab with a header line and align numbers to the right:
sed 's/#.*//' /etc/fstab | column --table --table-columns SOURCE,TARGET,TYPE,OPTIONS,FREQ,PASS --table-right FREQ,PASS
Print fstab and hide unnamed columns:
sed 's/#.*//' /etc/fstab | column --table --table-columns SOURCE,TARGET,TYPE --table-hide -
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
SEE ALSO
colrm(1), ls(1), paste(1), sort(1)
REPORTING BUGS
For bug reports, use the issue tracker
<https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues>.
AVAILABILITY
The column command is part of the util-linux package which can be
downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive
<https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>.
util-linux 2.41.2 2025-09-22 COLUMN(1)
column \- columnate lists