.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 2003 Gunnar Ritter
.\"
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.\" including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute
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.\" Sccsid @(#)expand.1	1.1 (gritter) 5/5/03
.TH EXPAND 1 "5/5/03" "Heirloom Toolchest" "User Commands"
.SH NAME
expand \- convert tabs to spaces
.SH SYNOPSIS
\fBexpand\fR [\fB\-t\ \fItablist\fR | \fB\-\fItablist\fR] [\fIfile\fR\ ...]
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.I expand
utility converts all tabulators found in its input
.I files
(or in standard input if no
.I file
argument is present)
to spaces
and writes the result to standard output.
The input is ordered in columns
according to the width of characters;
a backspace character causes the column to be decremented.
By default, a tabulator stop is assumed at every eight positions.
.PP
The following options alter the behavior of
.IR expand :
.TP
.B \fB\-t\ \fItablist\fR
Specify the positions of tabulator stops.
If
.I tablist
is a single number,
a tabulator stop is assumed at every
.I tablist positions.
If
.I tablist
is a list of numbers
in strictly ascending order
separated by commas or blanks,
a tabulator stop is assumed at each numbered position.
For column positions beyond the last tabulator stop,
each tabulator character is converted to a single space character.
.SH "ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES"
.TP
.BR LANG ", " LC_ALL
See
.IR locale (7).
.TP
.B LC_CTYPE
Specifies the mapping of bytes to characters
and the width of characters.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
tabs(1),
unexpand(1)