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expand(1) General Commands Manual expand(1) NAME expand, unexpand - Replaces tab characters with spaces or spaces with tab characters SYNOPSIS Current syntax expand [-t tablist] [file...] unexpand [-a|-t tablist] [file...] Obsolescent syntax expand [-tabstop|-tab1,tab2,...,tabn] [file...] STANDARDS Interfaces documented on this reference page conform to industry stan- dards as follows: expand: XPG4, XPG4-UNIX unexpand: XPG4, XPG4-UNIX Refer to the standards(5) reference page for more information about in- dustry standards and associated tags. OPTIONS Replaces spaces at the beginning of each line with a tab, and inserts tab characters wherever their presence compresses the resultant file by replacing two or more characters. When the -t option is specified with the unexpand command, the -a option has no effect. (This option ap- plies to the unexpand command only.) Specifies the tab stops. The tablist argument consists of a single positive decimal integer or mul- tiple positive decimal integers, separated by spaces or commas, in as- cending order. If a single number is specified, tabs are set tablist column positions apart instead of the default (8). If multiple numbers are specified, tabs are set at those specific column positions. Tab- bing to tab stop position n thus causes the next character output to be in the (n+1)th column position on that line. If expand has to process a tab character at a position beyond the last of those specified in a multiple tab stop list, the tab character is replaced by a single space in the output. Sets tab stops tabstop spaces apart instead of the default (8). (Obso- lescent) Sets tab stops at specified columns. (Obsolescent) [DIGITAL] Columns are measured in bytes. OPERANDS The path name of a file to be processed. If you do not specify this operand, standard input is read. DESCRIPTION The expand command changes tab characters to spaces in the named files, or the standard input, and writes the result to the standard output. The unexpand command puts tab characters into the data from the stan- dard input, or the named files, and writes the result to the standard output. Backspace characters are preserved in the output and decrement the col- umn count for tab calculations. The column position count cannot be decremented below one. The expand command is useful for preprocessing character files (before sorting, looking at specific columns, and so on.) that contain tab characters. By default, unexpand converts only spaces that are within sequences of spaces and tab characters at the beginnings of lines. Use -a to con- vert other sequences of spaces. NOTES If the expand command encounters difficulties opening any specified file, it writes an error message to standard error and terminates imme- diately with an error status. If the unexpand command encounters difficulties opening any specified file, it writes an error message to standard error and continues opera- tion. The exit status will reflect the error. EXIT STATUS The following exit values are returned by either command: Successful completion. An error occurred. EXAMPLES To replace tab characters in file with spaces, enter: expand file To replace the spaces in file with tab characters, enter: unexpand -a file ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES The following environment variables affect the execution of expand and unexpand: Provides a default value for the internationalization vari- ables that are unset or null. If LANG is unset or null, the correspond- ing value from the default locale is used. If any of the internation- alization variables contain an invalid setting, the utility behaves as if none of the variables had been defined. If set to a non-empty string value, overrides the values of all the other internationaliza- tion variables. Determines the locale for the interpretation of se- quences of bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to multibyte characters in arguments). Determines the lo- cale for the format and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error. Determines the location of message catalogues for the processing of LC_MESSAGES. SEE ALSO Commands: fold(1), tabs(1) Standards: standards(5) expand(1)