Unexpand Explained

'''unexpand''' is a shell command that converts space characters to tab characters.^[1] Originally, developed for Unix and standardized by POSIX, it is available on many operating systems today.

In the following commands, the echo command prints a string of text that includes multiple consecutive spaces. The output is directed into . The resulting output is displayed as octal via [[Od (Unix)|od]]. At the second prompt, the same echo output is sent directly to . As shown, converts each sequence of eight spaces to a tab (printed as '\t').

$ echo " asdf sdf" | unexpand | od -c0000000 \t \t a s d f s d f \n0000014$ echo " asdf sdf" | od -c00000000000020 a s d f s d f \n0000032

See also

• List of POSIX commands
• Expand (Unix)

External links

• https://web.archive.org/web/20051031053512/http://www.linuxmanpages.com/man1/unexpand.1.php The program's manpage

Notes and References

1. Web site: unexpand - Compress spaces into tabs . 2024-05-09 . www.ibm.com . en-us.