coreutils: expand invocation
1
1 9.2 ‘expand’: Convert tabs to spaces
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1
1 ‘expand’ writes the contents of each given FILE, or standard input if
1 none are given or for a FILE of ‘-’, to standard output, with tab
1 characters converted to the appropriate number of spaces. Synopsis:
1
1 expand [OPTION]... [FILE]...
1
1 By default, ‘expand’ converts all tabs to spaces. It preserves
1 backspace characters in the output; they decrement the column count for
1 tab calculations. The default action is equivalent to ‘-t 8’ (set tabs
1 every 8 columns).
1
11 The program accepts the following options. Also see ⇒Common
options.
1
1 ‘-t TAB1[,TAB2]...’
1 ‘--tabs=TAB1[,TAB2]...’
1 If only one tab stop is given, set the tabs TAB1 spaces apart
1 (default is 8). Otherwise, set the tabs at columns TAB1, TAB2, ...
1 (numbered from 0), and replace any tabs beyond the last tab stop
1 given with single spaces. Tab stops can be separated by blanks as
1 well as by commas.
1
1 As a GNU extension the last TAB specified can be prefixed with a
1 ‘/’ to indicate a tab size to use for remaining positions. For
1 example, ‘--tabs=2,4,/8’ will set tab stops at position 2 and 4,
1 and every multiple of 8 after that.
1
1 Also the last TAB specified can be prefixed with a ‘+’ to indicate
1 a tab size to use for remaining positions, offset from the final
1 explicitly specified tab stop. For example, to ignore the 1
1 character gutter present in diff output, one can specify a 1
1 character offset using ‘--tabs=1,+8’, which will set tab stops at
1 positions 1,9,17,...
1
1 For compatibility, GNU ‘expand’ also accepts the obsolete option
1 syntax, ‘-T1[,T2]...’. New scripts should use ‘-t T1[,T2]...’
1 instead.
1
1 ‘-i’
1 ‘--initial’
1 Only convert initial tabs (those that precede all non-space or
1 non-tab characters) on each line to spaces.
1
1 An exit status of zero indicates success, and a nonzero value
1 indicates failure.
1