expand - convert tabs to spaces

expand writes the contents of each given file to standard output with tab characters replaced with one or more space characters needed to pad to the next tab stop. Each backspace character copied to standard output causes the column position to be decremented by 1 unless already in the first column.

If no file is given, or if the file is -, expand copies from standard input. The start of the file is defined as the current offset.

-i, --initial

Only convert initial tabs (those that precede all non space or tab characters) on each line to spaces.

-t, --tabs=tablist

tablist is a comma or space separated list of positive integers that specifies the tab stops. If only one tab stop is specified, then tabs will be set at that many column positions apart. Otherwise, the value in tablist must be in ascending order and the tab stops will be set to these positions. In the event of expand having to process tab characters beyond the last specified tab stop, each tab character is replaced by a single tab. The default value is 8.

0

All files expanded successfully.

>0

One or more files failed to open or could not be read.

unexpand(1), pr(1)

version

expand (AT&T Research) 1999-06-17

author

David Korn <dgk@research.att.com>

copyright

Copyright © 1995-2012 AT&T Intellectual Property

license

http://www.eclipse.org/org/documents/epl-v10.html