EXPAND(1L) manual page
Table of Contents
NAME
expand - convert tabs to spacesSYNOPSIS
expand [-tab1[,tab2[,...]]] [-t tab1[,tab2[,...]]] [-i] [--tabs=tab1[,tab2[,...]]] [--initial] [--help] [--version] [file...]DESCRIPTION
This manual page documents the GNU version of expand. expand writes the contents of each given file, or the standard input if none are given or when a file named `-' is given, to the standard output, with tab characters converted to the appropriate number of spaces. By default, expand converts all tabs to spaces. It preserves backspace characters in the output; they decrement the column count for tab calculations. The default action is equivalent to -8 (set tabs every 8 columns).OPTIONS
- -, -t, --tabs tab1[,tab2[,...]]
- If only one tab stop is given, set the tabs tab1 spaces apart instead of the default 8. Otherwise, set the tabs at columns tab1 , tab2 , etc. (numbered from 0) and replace any tabs beyond the tabstops given with single spaces. If the tabstops are specified with the -t or --tabs option, they can be separated by blanks as well as by commas.
- -i, --initial
- Only convert initial tabs (those that precede all non space or tab characters) on each line to spaces.
- --help
- Print a usage message and exit with a status code indicating success.
- --version
- Print version information on standard output then exit.