NAME

col − filter reverse line feeds

SYNOPSIS

col [ options ]

DESCRIPTION

Col reads the standard input and writes the standard output.  It performs the line overlays implied by reverse line feeds (ESC-7 in ASCII) and by forward and reverse half line feeds (ESC-9 and ESC-8).  Col is particularly useful for filtering multicolumn output made with the ‘.rt’ command of nroff and output resulting from use of the tbl(1) preprocessor. 

Although col accepts half line motions in its input, it normally does not emit them on output.  Instead, text that would appear between lines is moved to the next lower full line boundary.  This treatment can be suppressed by the −f (fine) option, described below. 

The control characters SO (ASCII code 017), and SI (016) are assumed to start and end text in an alternate character set.  The character set (primary or alternate) associated with each printing character read is remembered; on output, SO and SI characters are generated where necessary to maintain the correct treatment of each character. 

All control characters are removed from the input except space, backspace, tab, return, newline, ESC (033) followed by one of 7, 8, 9, SI, SO, and VT (013).  This last character is an alternate form of full reverse line feed, for compatibility with some other hardware conventions.  All other non-printing characters are ignored. 

OPTIONS

−b Tells col to assume that the output device in use is not capable of backspacing.  In this case, if several characters are to appear in the same place, only the last one read will be taken. 

−f Lets col include forward half lines in its output.  The output can contain forward half line feeds (ESC-9), but never either kind of reverse line motion. 

−h Makes col convert white space to tabs to shorten printing time. 

SEE ALSO

troff(1), tbl(1)

BUGS

Col can’t back up more than 128 lines. 
Col will not accept more than 800 characters, including backspaces, on a line. 

INTEGRATED SOLUTIONS 4.3 BSD  —  May 16, 1986