col(1)

NAME

     col - reverse line-feeds filter

SYNOPSIS

     col [-bfpx]

DESCRIPTION

     The col utility reads from the standard input and writes  to
     the  standard  output. It performs the line overlays implied
     by reverse line-feeds, and  by  forward  and  reverse  half-
     line-feeds.   Unless -x is used, all blank characters in the
     input will be converted to tab characters wherever possible.
     col is particularly useful for filtering multi-column output
     made with the .rt command of nroff(1) and  output  resulting
     from use of the tbl(1) preprocessor.

     The ASCII control characters SO and SI are assumed by col to
     start  and  end  text  in  an alternative character set. The
     character set to  which  each  input  character  belongs  is
     remembered, and on output SI and SO characters are generated
     as appropriate to ensure that each character is  written  in
     the correct character set.

     On input, the only control characters  accepted  are  space,
     backspace,  tab, carriage-return and newline characters, SI,
     SO,  VT,  reverse  line-feed,  forward  half-line-feed   and
     reverse  half-line-feed.  The VT character is an alternative
     form of full reverse line-feed, included  for  compatibility
     with  some  earlier  programs  of  this type. The only other
     characters to be copied to the output  are  those  that  are
     printable.

     The ASCII codes for the control  functions  and  line-motion
     sequences  mentioned  above are as given in the table below.
     ESC stands for the ASCII escape character,  with  the  octal
     code  033; ESC- means a sequence of two characters, ESC fol-
     lowed by the character x.

     reverse line-feed             ESC-7
     reverse half-line-feed        ESC-8
     forward half-line-feed        ESC-9
     vertical-tab (VT)             013
     start-of-text (SO)            016
     end-of-text (SI)              017

OPTIONS

     -b    Assume that the output device in use is not capable of
           backspacing.  In  this case, if two or more characters
           are to appear in the same place,  only  the  last  one
           read will be output.

     -f    Although col accepts half-line motions in  its  input,
           it  normally  does  not  emit them on output. Instead,
           text that would appear between lines is moved  to  the
           next  lower  full-line boundary. This treatment can be
           suppressed by the -f (fine) option; in this case,  the
           output  from  col  may contain forward half-line-feeds
           (ESC-9), but will still never contain either  kind  of
           reverse line motion.

     -p    Normally, col will ignore any escape sequences unknown
           to  it  that are found in its input; the -p option may
           be used to cause col to output these sequences as reg-
           ular  characters, subject to overprinting from reverse
           line  motions.  The  use  of  this  option  is  highly
           discouraged unless the user is fully aware of the tex-
           tual position of the escape sequences.

     -x    Prevent col from converting blank  characters  to  tab
           characters  on output wherever possible. Tab stops are
           considered to be at each column position n such that n
           modulo 8 equals 1.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

     See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment
     variables  that  affect  the  execution  of  col:  LC_CTYPE,
     LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.

EXIT STATUS

     The following error values are returned:

     0     Successful completion.

     >0    An error occurred.

ATTRIBUTES

     See attributes(5) for descriptions of the  following  attri-
     butes:

     ____________________________________________________________
    |       ATTRIBUTE TYPE        |       ATTRIBUTE VALUE       |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|
    | Availability                | SUNWesu                     |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|
    | CSI                         | enabled                     |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|

SEE ALSO

     nroff(1), tbl(1), ascii(5), attributes(5), environ(5)

NOTES

     The input format accepted by col matches the output produced
     by nroff with either the -T37 or -Tlp options. Use -T37 (and
     the -f option of col) if the  ultimate  disposition  of  the
     output  of col will be a device that can interpret half-line
     motions, and -Tlp otherwise.

     col cannot back up more than 128 lines or handle  more  than
     800 characters per line.

     Local vertical motions that would result in backing up  over
     the first line of the document are ignored. As a result, the
     first line must not have any superscripts.