NAME

ansicolumn - ANSI terminal sequence aware column command

VERSION

Version 1.09

SYNOPSIS

ansicolumn [options] [file ...]

-c#                  output width
-s#                  separator string
-t                   table style output
-l#                  maximum number of table columns
-x                   exchange rows and columns
-o#                  output separator
-R#                  right adjust table columns

-P[#]                page mode, with optional page length
-D                   document mode
-C#                  number of panes
-S#                  pane width
-F                   full-width

--height=#           page height
--column-unit=#      column unit (default 8)
--linestyle=#        folding style (none|truncate|wrap|wordwrap)
--boundary=#         line-end boundary
--linebreak=#        line-break mode (none|all|runin|runout)
--runin=#            run-in width
--runout=#           run-out width
--[no-]pagebreak     allow page break
--border=#           print border
--border-style=#     border style
--[no-]ignore-space  ignore space in table output
--[no-]insert-space  insert empty line
--[no-]paragraph     same as --insert-space
--[no-]white-space   allow page top white spaces
--[no-]isolation     page-end line isolation
--fillup=#           fill-up unit (pane|page|none)
--tabstop=#          tab-stop character
--tabhead=#          tab-head character
--tabspace=#         tab-space width
--tabstyle=#         tab style
--ambiguous=#        ambiguous character width (narrow|wide)

DESCRIPTION

ansicolumn is a column(1) command clone which can handle ANSI terminal sequences. It supports traditional options and some of Linux extended, and other original options. Empty lines are not ignored, though.

COMPATIBLE OPTIONS

The column utility formats its input into multiple columns. Rows are filled before columns. Input is taken from file operands, or, by default, from the standard input.

• -c#, --width=#, --output-width=#

  Output is formatted for a display columns wide. See "CALCULATION" section.

• -s#, --separator=#

  Specify a set of characters to be used to delimit columns for the -t option.

• -t, --table

  Determine the number of columns the input contains and create a table. Columns are delimited with whitespace, by default, or with the characters supplied using the -s option. Useful for pretty-printing displays.

• -l#, --table-columns-limit number

  Specify maximal number of the input columns. The last column will contain all remaining line data if the limit is smaller than the number of the columns in the input data.

• -x, --fillrows

  Fill columns before filling rows.

• -o#, --output-separator=#

  When used --table or -t option, each columns are joined by two space characters (' ') by default. This option will change it.

• -Rcolumns, --table-right=columns

  Right align text in these columns. Support only numbers.

EXTENDED OPTION

• -P[#], --page[=#]

  Page mode. Set these options.

    --height=# or 1-
    --linestyle=wrap
    --border
    --fillup
  

  If optional number is given, it is used as a page height unless option --height exists. Otherwise page height is set to terminal height minus one.

• -D, --document

  Document mode. Set these options.

    --fullwidth
    --linebreak=all
    --linestyle=wrap
    --boundary=word
    --no-white-space
    --no-isolation
  

  Next command display DOCX text in 3-up format using App::optex::textconv.

    optex -Mtextconv ansicolumn -DPC3 foo.docx | less
  

• -C#, --pane=#

  Output is formatted in the specified number of panes. Setting number of panes implies --fullwidth option enabled.

• -S#, --pane-width=#, --pw=#

  Specify pane width. This includes border spaces. See "CALCULATION" section.

• -F, --fullwidth

  Use full width of the terminal. Each panes are expanded to fill terminal width, unless --pane-width is specified.

• --height=#

  Set page height and page mode on. See "CALCULATION" section.

• --column-unit=#

  Each columns are placed at the unit of 8 by default. This option changes the number of the unit.

• --linestyle=none|truncate|wrap|wordwrap, --ls=...

  Set the style of treatment for longer lines. Default is none.

  --linestyle=wordrap is equivalent to --linestyle=wrap --boundary=word.

• --boundary=word

  Set text wrap boundary. If this option set to word, text is wrapped at word boundary. Option --document set this automatically. Use something like `--boundary=none' to disable it.

• --linebreak=none|all|runin|runout, --lb=...

  Set the linebreak mode.

• --runin=#, --runout=#

  Set the number of runin/runout column. Default is both 2.

• --[no-]pagebreak

  Move to next pane when form feed character found. Default true.

• --border[=style]

  Print border. Enabled by --page option automatically. If the optional style is given, it is used as a border style and precedes to --border-style option. Use --border=none to disable it.

  Border style is specified by --border-style option.

• --border-style=style, --bs=...

  Set the border style. Current default style is vbar, which is light vertical line filling the page height.

  Sample styles: none, vbar, fence, line, heavy-line, ascii-frame, ascii-box, c-box, box, frame, page-frame, shadow, shadow-box, comb, rake, mesh, dumbbell, heavy-dumbbell, ribbon, round-ribbon, double-ribbon, double-double-ribbon, heavy-ribbon

  These are experimental and subject to change, and this document is not always up-to-date. See `perldoc -m App::ansicolumn::Border` for actual data.

  You can define your own style in module or startup file. Put next lines in your $HOME/.ansicolumnrc file, for example.

    option default --border-style myheart
    __PERL__
    App::ansicolumn::Border->add_style(
        myheart  => {
        left   => [ "\N{WHITE HEART SUIT} ", "\N{BLACK HEART SUIT} " ],
        center => [ "\N{WHITE HEART SUIT} ", "\N{BLACK HEART SUIT} " ],
        right  => [ "\N{WHITE HEART SUIT}" , "\N{BLACK HEART SUIT}"  ],
    },
    );
  

• --[no-]ignore-space, --[no-]is

  When used -t option, leading spaces are ignored by default. Use --no-ignore-space option to disable it.

• --[no-]insert-space

• --[no-]paragraph

  Insert empty line between every successive non-empty lines.

• --[no-]white-space

  Allow white spaces at the top of each panes, or clean them up. Default true. Negated by --document option.

• --[no-]isolation

  Allow the first line of a paragraph (continuous non-space lines) is placed at the bottom of a pane. Default true. If false, move it to the top of next pane. Negated by --document option.

• --fillup[=pane|page|none]

  Fill up final pane or page by empty lines. Parameter is optional and considered as 'pane' by default. Set by --page option automatically. Use --fillup=none if you want to explicitly disable it.

• --tabstop=#

  Set tab width.

• --tabhead=#

• --tabspace=#

  Set head and following space characters. Both are space by default. If the option value is longer than single characger, it is evaluated as unicode name.

• --tabstyle=#

  Set the style how tab is expanded. Select from dot, symbol or shade. Styles are defined in Text::ANSI::Fold library.

• --ambiguous=width_spec

  Specifies how to treat Unicode ambiguous width characters. Take a value of 'narrow' or 'wide. Default is 'narrow'.

CALCULATION

As for --height, --width and --pane-width options, besides giving numeric digits, you can calculate the number using terminal size. If the expression contains non-digit character, it is evaluated as a Reverse Polish Notation with the terminal size pushed on the stack.

OPTION              VALUE
=================   =========================
--height 1-         height - 1
--height 2/         height / 2
--height 1-2/       (height - 1) / 2
--height dup2%-2/   (height - height % 2) / 2

Space and comma characters are ignored in the expression. So 1-2/ and 1 - 2 / and 1,-,2,/ are all same. See `perldoc Math::RPN` for the expression detail.

STARTUP

This command is implemented with Getopt::EX module. So

~/.ansicolumnrc

file is read at start up. If you want use --no-white-space always, put this line in your ~/.ansicolumnrc.

option default --no-white-space

Also command can be extended by original modules with -M option. See `perldoc Getopt::EX` for detail.

INSTALL

CPANMINUS

$ cpanm App::ansicolumn
or
$ curl -sL http://cpanmin.us | perl - App::ansicolumn

To get the latest code, use this:

$ cpanm https://github.com/kaz-utashiro/App-ansicolumn.git

EXAMPLES

https://github.com/kaz-utashiro/App-ansicolumn/tree/master/images

SEE ALSO

column(1), https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/column.1.html

App::ansicolumn, https://github.com/kaz-utashiro/App-ansicolumn

Text::ANSI::Printf, https://github.com/kaz-utashiro/Text-ANSI-Printf

AUTHOR

Kazumasa Utashiro

LICENSE

Copyright 2020-2021 Kazumasa Utashiro.

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.