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App-ansicolumn-1.43
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NAME

ansicolumn - ANSI terminal sequence aware column command

SYNOPSIS

ansicolumn [options] [file ...]

-w#, -c#             output width
-s#                  separator string
-l#                  maximum number of table columns
-x                   exchange rows and columns
-o#                  output separator

-P[#], --page=#      page mode, with optional page length
-U[#], --up=#        show in N-up format (-WC# --linestyle=wrap)
--2up .. --9up       same as -U2 .. -U9
-D,  --document      document mode
-V,  --parallel      parallel view mode
-H,  --filename      print filename header in parallel view mode
-X#, --cell=#        set text width for files in parallel view mode
-C#, --pane=#        number of panes
-S#, --pane-width=#  pane width
-W,  --widen         widen to terminal width
-p,  --paragraph     paragraph mode
-r,  --regex-sep     treat separator string as regex

-B,  --border[=#]    print border with optional style
-F, --fillup[=#]     fill-up unit (pane|page|none)

--height=#           page height
--column-unit=#      column unit (default 8)
--margin=#           column margin width (default 1)
--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
--runlen=#           set both run-in and run-out width
--[no-]pagebreak     allow page break
--border-style=#     border style
--[no-]ignore-space  ignore space in table output
--[no-]white-space   allow white spaces at the top of each pane
--[no-]isolation     page-end line isolation
--tabstop=#          set tab width
--tabhead=#          tab-head character
--tabspace=#         tab-space character
--tabstyle=#         tab style
--ambiguous=#        ambiguous character width (narrow|wide)
--pages              split file by formfeed

Table style options:

-t, --table          table style output
-A, --table-align    align table output to column unit
-T, --table-tabs     align items by tabs
-TT                  reformat tab aligned text
-R#, --table-right=# right adjust table columns

Default alias options:

--board-color FG BG  board style pages with FG and BG colors
--white-board        black on white board
--black-board        white on black board
--green-board        white on green board
--slate-board        white on dark slategray board

VERSION

Version 1.43

DESCRIPTION

ansicolumn is a column(1) command clone which can handle ANSI terminal sequences, backspaces, and Asian wide characters. It supports traditional options and some of Linux extended, and many other original options.

In addition to normal operation, table style output (-t) is supported as well.

In contrast to the original column(1) command which handles mainly short item list, and Linux variant which has been expanded to have ritch table style output, ansicolumn(1) has been expanded to show text file in multi-column view. Combined with pagenation and document-friendly folding mechanism, it can be used as a document viewing preprocessor for pager program.

In order to accurately display the contents of the file, blank lines that were ignored by the original column(1) command are not ignored.

When multiple files are given as arguments, it gets in the parallel view mode, and show all files in parallel. It's convenient to see multiple files side-by-side.

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.

-w#, -c#, --width=#, --output-width=#

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

Accept -c for compatibility, but -w is more popular.

-s#, --separator=#

Specify a set of characters to be used to delimit columns for the -t option. When used with --regex-sep or -r option, it is used as regex rather than character set.

-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.

Unlike original column(1) command, empty field is not ignored.

-l#, --table-columns-limit=#

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 column are joined by two space characters (' ') by default. This option will change it.

-R#, --table-right=#

Right align text in these columns. Multiple columns are separated by commas. Support only numbers.

Parameters are parsed by the Getopt::EX::Numbers module, so you can specify a range of numbers, as in -R2:5 which is equivalent to -R2,3,4,5. Option -R: makes all fields right-aligned.

EXTENDED OPTIONS

-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.

-U#, --up=#, --2up .. --9up

Show in N-up format. Almost same as -P but does not set page height. This is convenient when you want multi-column output without page control.

-D, --document

Document mode. Set these options.

--widen
--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
-V, --[no-]parallel

Parallel view mode. Implicitly enabled when multiple files are specified. Use --no-parallel to disable.

Set these options, and cancel all pagenation behavior.

--widen
--linestyle=wrap
--border

By default, all files are displayed in parallel. In other words, number of pane is set as a number of files. You can use -C option to specify number of files displayed simultaneously.

You can use this option mixed with -D option to see document files.

If you want to display multiple parts in a single stream in parallel, use the --pages option. It will split the data by form feed characters and treat each part as a separate file.

-H, --filename
--filename-format=format (DEFAULT: : %s)

Print filename header before contents. Currently, this option is effective only in --parallel mode. Filename is truncated in each pane width.

This option is convenient to look over many small files at once.

ansicolumn -VHC1 *.txt | less

Filename is printed in a format given by --filename-format option. Default is : %s so that making easy to move to next file by ^: pattern search.

-I, --[no-]ignore-empty

Ignore empty files. Default false.

-X#, --cell=#

Sets the display width of each file. This option is only valid with parallel view mode. For example, if you are displaying three files and want the first file to be displayed in 80 columns and the remaining files in 40 columns, specify like this:

--cell 80,40,40

This is the same as

--cell 80,40

since the last value specified is repeated.

You can also specify values relative to the default width. For example, to display the first column 20 columns more and the remaining columns 10 columns less, use

--cell +20,-10

To return to the default display width for the fourth and subsequent files, use

--cell +20,-10,-10,+0

If = is specified as the value, it is set to the width of the longest line in the file.

-X=

Then all specified files will be displayed with the width of the longest line they contain. = may be followed by a maximum value.

-X=80

will set the cell width to length of the longest line if it is less than 80, or 80 if it is greater than 80. < may be used instead of =.

-X'<80'

The correspondence between file and display width remains the same even when the number of columns to be displayed simultaneously is specified with the -C option.

-C#, --pane=#

Output is formatted in the specified number of panes. Setting number of panes implies --widen option enabled. See "CALCULATION" section.

-S#, --pane-width=#, --pw=#

Specify the span of each pane. This includes border spaces. See "CALCULATION" section.

-W, --widen

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

-p, --paragraph

Insert empty line between every successive non-empty lines.

-B, --border[=style] (DEFAULT: box)

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.

--no-border

Shortcut for --border=none.

-F, --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.

Option -F is a shortcut for --fillup=pane.

--fillup-str=string

Set string used for filling up space. Default is empty.

Use --fillup-str='~' to fill up the area after EOF by ~ character like vi(1) or more(1).

--height=#

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

--column-unit=#, --cu=# (DEFAULT: 8)

Each column is placed at the unit of 8 by default. This option changes the number of the unit.

--margin=#

Each column has at least single character margin on the right side so that they are not placed back-to-back. This option specifies the margin width.

-A, --table-align

Align each field in the table output to column-unit. If this option is specified, --output-separator option is ignored. Implicitly enable the --table option.

-T, -TT, --table-tabs

This option enables the --table and --table-align option, and forces to use tab characters between items. The width of tab uses the value of --column-unit. Option --table-right does not take effect.

If the -T option is specified twice, set the input separator as repeating tabs (same as -rs '\t+'). So the option -TT can be used to reformat tab aligned text.

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

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

Option --linestyle=wordrap sets --linestyle=wrap and --boundary=word at once.

--boundary=none|word|space

Set text wrap boundary. If set as word or space, text is not wrapped in the middle of alphanumeric word or non-space sequence. Option --document set this as word. See Text::ANSI::Fold for detail.

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

Set the linebreak mode.

--runin=#, --runout=#, --runlen=#

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

As for Japanese text, only one character can be moved with default value. Longer value allows more flexible arrangement, but makes text area shorter. Author is using the command with own ~/.ansicolumnrc like this:

option default --runin=4 --runout=4
--[no-]pagebreak

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

-r, --regex-sep

Treat separator option as a regex pattern. Next example specifies a space character just before ( as a separator.

gem list | ansicolumn -trs ' (?=\()'
--border-style=style, --bs=...

Set the border style. Current default style is box, which enclose each pane with box drawing graphic characters. Special style random choose random style.

Sample styles: none, space, vbar, heavy-vbar, fat-vbar, line, heavy-line, hline, heavy-hline, bottom-line, heavy-bottom-line, stick, heavy-stick, ascii-frame, ascii-box, c-box, box, heavy-box, fat-box, very-fat-box, dash-box, heavy-dash-box, fat-dash-box, round-box, inner-box, outer-box, frame, heavy-frame, fat-frame, very-fat-frame, dash-frame, heavy-dash-frame, fat-dash-frame, page-frame, heavy-page-frame, zebra-frame, checker-box, checker-frame, shadow, shin-shadow, shadow-box, shin-shadow-box, heavy-shadow-box, comb, heavy-comb, rake, heavy-rake, mesh, heavy-mesh, dumbbell, heavy-dumbbell, ribbon, heavy-ribbon, round-ribbon, double-ribbon, corner, crop, paren, etc.

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-]white-space

Allow white spaces at the top of each pane, 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.

--tabstop=# (DEFAULT: 8)

Set tab width.

--tabhead=#
--tabspace=#

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

--tabstyle, --ts
--tabstyle=style, --ts=...
--tabstyle=head-style,space-style --ts=...

Set the style how tab is expanded. Select symbol or shade for example. If two style names are combined, like squat-arrow,middle-dot, use squat-arrow for tabhead and middle-dot for tabspace.

Show available style list if called without parameter. Styles are defined in Text::ANSI::Fold library.

--ambiguous=wide|narrow (DEFAULT: narrow)

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

--pages

Split file content by formfeed character, and treat each part as a individual file. Use with --parallel option.

DEFAULT ALISES

The following options are defined in App::ansicolumn::default.pm.

--board-color fg-color bg-color

This option is defined as follows:

option --board-color \
       --bs=inner-box \
       --cm=BORDER=$<2>,TEXT=$<shift>/$<shift>

The resulting text is displayed in an fg-color font on an bg-color panel.

--white-board
--black-board
--green-board
--slate-board

Use the --board-color option to display text on the white, black, green or darkslate panels.

CALCULATION

As for --height, --width, --pane, --up 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 an RPN (Reverse Polish Notation) with the terminal size pushed on the stack. Initial value for --height options is terminal height, and terminal width for others.

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.

Next example select number of panes by dividing terminal width by 85:

ansicolumn --pane 85/

If you consider the case the terminal width is less than 85:

ansicolumn --pane 85/,DUP,1,GE,EXCH,1,IF

This RPN means $height/85 >= 1 ? $height/85 : 1.

STARTUP

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

~/.ansicolumnrc

file is read at start up time. 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

To get the latest code, use this:

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

EXAMPLES

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

SEE ALSO

https://github.com/tecolicom/ANSI-Tools

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

App::ansicolumn, https://github.com/tecolicom/App-ansicolumn

Text::ANSI::Printf, https://github.com/tecolicom/Text-ANSI-Printf

Articles (in Japanese)

RELATED WORKS

https://github.com/LukeSavefrogs/column_ansi

AUTHOR

Kazumasa Utashiro

LICENSE

Copyright © 2020-2024 Kazumasa Utashiro.

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