Overview
col transforms text streams by removing or converting specific control characters, making them suitable for display on terminals or in files. It is particularly useful for handling sequences like backspaces used for text emphasis in `man` pages.
Key Features
- Removes reverse line feeds
- Processes backspace characters (removes or converts to spaces)
- Expands tab characters to spaces
- Filters other control characters
Key Options
Filtering Options
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Description:
`col` Executes the command.
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Usage Examples
The col command is primarily used to process the output of other commands via pipes (|).
Filtering man page output
man ls | col -b > ls_manpage.txtPipes the output of `man ls` through `col -b` to remove backspace-induced bold formatting and produce pure text. This is useful when saving `man` pages to a file.
Converting tabs to spaces
cat my_file_with_tabs.txt | col -xProcesses the content of a file containing tab characters with `col -x` to convert all tabs into spaces. This helps maintain consistent formatting in text files.
Handling both backspaces and tabs
some_command_output | col -bxProcesses both backspace and tab characters to achieve the cleanest plain text output.
Tips & Notes
The col command is specialized for converting specific output formats into plain text.
Using with man pages
When saving man page output to a file or piping it to another program, it's recommended to use col -b or col -bx to remove unnecessary control characters. For example, man <command> | col -bx | less provides a cleaner output in less.
man <command> | col -bxis a standard way to convertmanpages to plain text.- Using
colwhen saving output to a file makes it easier to view in a text editor later.
Combining with other text processing tools
col becomes more powerful when used in pipelines with other text processing tools like sed, awk, and grep. For instance, you can use it as man <command> | col -bx | grep 'keyword'.