NAME

expand, unexpand − expand tabs to spaces, and vice versa

SYNOPSIS

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 into spaces.  Backspace characters are preserved into the output and decrement the column count for tab calculations.  expand is useful for pre-processing character files that contain tabs (before sorting, looking at specific columns, etc). 

[−tabstop] When a single tabstop argument is given, tabs are set tabstop spaces apart instead of the default 8. 

[−tab1,tab2,...,tabn]
When multiple tabstop locations are specified, the tabs are set at those specific columns.

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, only leading blanks and tabs are reconverted to maximal strings of tabs.  If the −a option is given, tabs are inserted whenever they would compress the resultant file by replacing two or more blanks before a tab stop. 

EXTERNAL INFLUENCES

International Code Set Support

Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported. 

Hewlett-Packard Company  —  HP-UX Release 8.05: June 1991