expand - Man Page

convert tabs to spaces

Examples (TL;DR)

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.

-i,  --initial

do not convert tabs after non blanks

-t,  --tabs=N

have tabs N characters apart, not 8

-t, --tabs=LIST

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

--help

display this help and exit

--version

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/>

See Also

unexpand(1)

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

Referenced By

col(1), colrm(1), perlmodlib(1), unexpand(1).

January 2024 GNU coreutils 9.4