NAME

expand, unexpand − expand tabs to spaces and vice versa

USAGE

expand [ −tabstop ] [ −tab1,tab2,...,tabn ] [ file ...  ]
unexpand [ −a ] [ file ...  ]

DESCRIPTION

Expand processes the named files or the standard input and writes the standard output with tabs changed to blanks.  It preserves backspace characters into the output, and decrements the column count for tab calculations.  Expand is useful for preprocessing character files (before sorting, looking at specific columns, etc.) that contain tabs. 

Unexpand puts tabs back into the data from the standard input or the named files and writes the result on the standard output.  By default, it reconverts only leading blanks and tabs to maximal strings of tabs. 

OPTIONS

−tabstop Set tabs tabstop spaces apart (the default is 8). 

−tab1,tab2...,tabn Set tabs equal to those specified by tab1,tab2...,tabn.

−a Insert tabs whenever they would compress the resultant file by replacing two or more characters.