expand

expand [options ] [files ]

Expand tab characters into appropriate number of spaces. expand reads the named files or standard input if no files are provided. See also unexpand .

Options

-t tablist

Interpret tabs according to tablist , a space- or comma-separated list of numbers in ascending order, that describe the "tabstops" for the input data.

- n

Set the tabstops every n characters. The default is 8.

- tablist

Interpret tabs according to tablist , a space- or comma-separated list of numbers in ascending order, that describe the "tabstops" for the input data.

Example

Cut columns 10-12 of the input data, even when tabs are used:

expand data | cut -c 10-12 > data.col2