SYNOPSIS

       unexpand [-a] [-t tablist | -tablist] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION

       The  unexpand  utility  converts multiple space characters found at the
       beginning of each line of its input files (or of standard input  if  no
       file  argument  is present) to tabulators if appropriate 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.

       The following options alter the behavior of unexpand:

       -a     Causes conversion also to apply to sequences of two or more spa-
              ces found after the first character on each line  other  than  a
              space.

       -t tablist
              Specify  the positions of tabulator stops.  If tablist is a sin-
              gle number, a tabulator stop is assumed at every  tablist  posi-
              tions.   If  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  sin-
              gle space character.  Implies -a.  This option was introduced by
              POSIX.2.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       LANG, LC_ALL
              See locale(7).

       LC_CTYPE
              Specifies the mapping of bytes to characters and  the  width  of
              characters.

SEE ALSO

       expand(1), tabs(1)



Heirloom Toolchest                  12/6/04                        UNEXPAND(1)