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COL(1)									COL(1)

NAME
       col - reverse line-feeds filter

SYNOPSIS
       col [-bfpx]

DESCRIPTION
       The  col	 utility reads from the standard input and writes to the stan‐
       dard 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-col‐
       umn 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 charac‐
       ter is an alternative form of full reverse line-feed, included for com‐
       patibility  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 followed 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 backspac‐
	      ing. 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 regular 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 attributes:

       ┌───────────────┬─────────────────┐
       │ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
       │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  charac‐
       ters 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.

				  Feb 1, 1995				COL(1)
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