| UNEXPAND(1) | General Commands Manual | UNEXPAND(1) |
NAME¶
unexpand - Convert blanks in each FILE to tabs, writing to standard output. With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.
SYNOPSIS¶
unexpand [-a|--all] [-f|--first-only] [-t|--tabs] [-U|--no-utf8] [-h|--help] [-V|--version] [file]
DESCRIPTION¶
Convert blanks in each FILE to tabs, writing to standard output. With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.
OPTIONS¶
- -a, --all
- convert all blanks, instead of just initial blanks
- -f, --first-only
- convert only leading sequences of blanks (overrides -a)
- -t, --tabs <N, LIST>
- use comma separated LIST of tab positions or have tabs N characters apart instead of 8 (enables -a)
- -U, --no-utf8
- interpret input file as 8-bit ASCII rather than UTF-8
- -h, --help
- Print help
- -V, --version
- Print version
VERSION¶
v(uutils coreutils) 0.9.0
EXAMPLES¶
Convert blanks in each file to tabs, writing to `stdout`:
unexpand path/to/file
Convert blanks to tabs, reading from `stdout`:
unexpand
Convert all blanks, instead of just initial blanks:
unexpand [-a|--all] path/to/file
Convert only leading sequences of blanks (overrides -a):
unexpand --first-only path/to/file
Have tabs a certain number of characters apart, not 8 (enables -a):
unexpand [-t|--tabs] number path/to/file
The examples are provided by the tldr-pages project <https://tldr.sh> under the CC BY 4.0 License. Please note that, as uutils is a work in progress, some examples might fail.
| 2026-06-04 |