Linux Atlas
ENRU

Text Processing

column

Formats text into aligned columns or tables.

column makes whitespace or delimiter-separated text easier to scan.

Syntax
column [options] [file]

Arguments explained

  • -t creates a table.
  • -s sets delimiter.
  • -N names columns on some systems.

Common examples

Align colon-separated data
cut -d: -f1,3 /etc/passwd | column -s: -t | head

Displays selected passwd fields as a table.

Format mounted filesystems
mount | column -t | less

Improves readability of mount output.

column Command
FieldDetails
Commandcolumn
CategoryText Processing
Primary useFormats text into aligned columns or tables.
Syntaxcolumn [options] [file]

Related articles

cut

Extracts sections from each line.

paste

Merges lines from files side by side.

awk

Processes structured text by fields and patterns.