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 to 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 the --table-* options below, is a
comma-separated list of user-supplied names defined with
--table-columns name1,name2,..., or indices of columns as they appear
in the input, beginning with 1, or names defined through a
--table-column 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.
Note that input longer than width is not truncated by default. The
default is the terminal width in interactive mode, and 80 columns
in non-interactive mode. The column headers are never truncated.
The placeholder unlimited (or 0) can be used to prevent restricting
the output width. This is recommended when redirecting output to a
file.
(The original long name of this option was --columns; this name is
deprecated since v2.30.)
-d, --table-noheadings
Omit printing the header. This option allows having 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, --input-separator, --separator separators
Possible input-item delimiters (default is whitespace).
-S, --use-spaces number
When not in table mode, use spaces instead of tabulators to align
the columns. This option specifies the minimum number of spaces
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.
--table-colorscheme name
Specifies color scheme. The default name is "column". For more
details see the COLORS section.
-C, --table-column attributes
Define a column with a comma-separated list of attributes. This
option can be used more than once, every use defines a single
column. Attributes replace some of the --table-* options: for
example, --table-column name=FOO,right defines a column where text
is aligned to the right. The option is mutually exclusive with
-N/--table-columns.
Supported attributes are:
name=string
Column name.
trunc
Truncate column text when necessary. The same as
--table-truncate. Note that the column header is never
truncated, and it is the minimal column width.
tree
Use this column for tree-like output. See --tree for more
details.
right
Right align text. The same as --table-right.
width=number
Column width. It's used only as a hint. To enforce it, specify
the strictwidth attribute as well. The actual minimum width is
the column header width.
strictwidth
Strictly follow the width= to set the minimum size of the
column. The column can be larger if the output width provides
enough space.
noextremes
Ignore unusually long content width. See --table-noextreme for
more details.
hidden
Don't print the column. See --table-hide for more details.
wrap
Allow the use of a multi-line cell for long text if necessary.
Note that the column header is never wrapped and determines the
minimum column width. See --table-wrap for more details.
wrapnl
Wrap at newline characters; newlines in cell data are treated
as line breaks.
wrapzero
Wrap at zero (NUL) characters in cell data.
json=type
Define the column type for JSON output. Supported types are
string, number, float, array-string, array-number and boolean.
color=name
Define the column color for output on the terminal. The name is
a color name (black, blink, blue, bold, brown, cyan, darkgray,
gray, green, halfbright, lightblue, lightcyan, lightgray,
lightgreen, lightmagenta, lightred, magenta, red, reset,
reverse, and yellow) or ANSI color sequence number(s) separated
by a semicolon, but without the 'ESC[' prefix and 'm' suffix.
For example, "37;41" defines sequences for a red background and
white foreground. For more details see the COLORS section.
colorkey=name
Addresses color as defined in the color scheme. See
--table-colorscheme.
headercolor=name
Like color=, but define the color for column header only.
headercolorkey=name
Addresses color for header as defined in the color scheme. See
--table-colorscheme.
-N, --table-columns names
Specify column names with a comma-separated list. The names are
used for the table header and for column addressing in option
arguments. See also --table-column.
-l, --table-columns-limit number
Specify the maximum number of input columns. The last column will
contain all remaining line data if the limit is smaller than the
number of columns in the input data.
-R, --table-right columns
Right align text in the specified columns.
-T, --table-truncate columns
Specify the columns where text can be truncated when necessary,
otherwise very long table entries may be printed on multiple lines.
-E, --table-noextreme columns
Specify the columns where longer-than-average content should be
ignored when calculating the column width. The option influences
width calculation and table formatting, but the printed text is not
affected.
This option is active by default for the last visible column.
-e, --table-header-repeat
Print header line for each page.
-K, --table-header-as-columns
Use the first input line as table header. This option is mutually
exclusive with --table-columns and --table-column.
-W, --table-wrap columns
Specify the columns where multi-line cells can be used for long
text. By default, text is wrapped according to column width. Use
--wrap-separator to wrap at custom separator characters instead.
Note that the column header is never wrapped and determines the
minimum column width.
--wrap-separator string
Use string as a separator for wrapping text within columns that
have wrapping enabled. The separator is replaced with newlines when
the text is displayed. This option requires table mode and columns
with wrapping enabled (see --table-wrap). For example, use | to
allow wrapping at pipe characters within column data.
-H, --table-hide columns
Don't print the 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 ID for a
child-parent relation.
-p, --tree-parent column
Specify the column that contains each line's parent ID for a
child-parent relation.
-x, --fillrows
Fill rows before filling columns.
--color[=when]
Colorize the output. The optional argument when can be auto, never
or always. If the when argument is omitted, it defaults to auto.
The colors can be disabled; for the current built-in default see
the --help output. See also the COLORS section.
-h, --help
Display help text and exit.
-V, --version
Display version and exit.
COLORS
The output colorization is implemented by terminal-colors.d(5)
functionality. Implicit coloring can be disabled by an empty file
/etc/terminal-colors.d/column.disable
for the column command or for all tools by
/etc/terminal-colors.d/disable
Since version 2.41, the $NO_COLOR environment variable is also
supported to disable output colorization unless explicitly enabled by a
command-line option.
The user-specific $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/terminal-colors.d or
$HOME/.config/terminal-colors.d overrides the global setting.
Note that the output colorization may be enabled by default, and in
this case terminal-colors.d directories do not have to exist yet.
The default color scheme name is "column," and it can be overridden by
--table-colorscheme name
Then name[.disable|enable|scheme] file may be used in
/etc/terminal-colors.d/, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/terminal-colors.d, or
$HOME/.config/terminal-colors.d/.
The logical color name (key) in the color scheme may be addressed by
column properties colorkey= and headercolorkey=. For example
echo 'important red' > ~/.config/terminal-colors.d/cooltable.scheme
echo 'important-header 37;41' >> ~/.config/terminal-colors.d/cooltable.scheme
echo -e "a b c\naa bb cc\naaa bbb ccc" | column -t \
--table-colorscheme=cooltable \
-C name=AAA,colorkey=important,headercolorkey=important-header \
-C name=BBB,color=magenta,headercolor=cyan \
-C name=CCC,color=green
This will create a color scheme with the name "cooltable" and colorize
the first column header and data according to keys from the scheme. The
other two columns will be colorized by direct color names.
ENVIRONMENT
COLUMNS
is used to determine the size of the screen if no other information
is available.
LIBSMARTCOLS_DEBUG=all
enables libsmartcols debug output.
LIBSMARTCOLS_DEBUG_PADDING=on
use visible padding characters.
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
Print table with custom wrap separator:
echo -e 'Name:Description\nJohn:A|software|developer\nJane:A|data|scientist' | column --table --separator ':' --table-wrap 2 --wrap-separator '|'
Name Description
John A
software
developer
Jane A
data
scientist
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 2.42.2 2026-06-16 column(1)
util-linux 2.42.2 - Generated Thu Aug 27 18:36:07 CDT 2026