Mac OS X Panther in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Name

expand

Synopsis

expand [options] [files]

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

Options

- tabs, -t tabs, --tabs tabs

tabs is a comma-separated list of integers that specify the placement of tab stops. If exactly one integer is provided, the tab stops are set to every integer spaces. By default, tab stops are eight spaces apart. With -t and --tabs, the list may be separated by whitespace instead of commas.

-i, --initial

Convert tabs only at the beginning of lines.

--help

Print help message and then exit.

--version

Print version information and then exit.

Example

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

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