Scroll to navigation

EXPAND(1) User Commands EXPAND(1)

NAME

expand - convert tabs to spaces

SYNOPSIS

expand [OPTION]... [FILE]...

DESCRIPTION

Convert tabs in each FILE to spaces, writing to standard output.

With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

do not convert tabs after non blanks
have tabs N characters apart, not 8
use comma separated list of tab positions. The last specified position can be prefixed with '/' to specify a tab size to use after the last explicitly specified tab stop. Also a prefix of '+' can be used to align remaining tab stops relative to the last specified tab stop instead of the first column
display this help and exit
output version information and exit

AUTHOR

Written by David MacKenzie.

REPORTING BUGS

GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO

unexpand(1)

Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/expand>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) expand invocation'

September 2022 GNU coreutils 9.1