COL(1)

💖 COL(1) — the glow-up edition 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to col, a User Commands classic. she's giving quiet-luxury command-line filter energy and honestly? she eats. let's get into it.

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✨ NAME ✨

col — filter reverse line feeds from input 🌀

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

col options

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so here's the vibe: col filters out reverse (and half-reverse) line feeds so the output comes out in the correct order, with only forward and half-forward line feeds left. she also replaces any whitespace characters with tabs where possible. this is lowkey iconic when you're processing the output of nroff(1) and tbl(1). 👑

col reads from standard input and writes to standard output. that's it, that's the whole personality. 🎀

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -b, --no-backspaces — do not output any backspaces, bestie. just print the last character written to each column position. no rewinding, no take-backs. 💀
• -f, --fine — permit half-forward line feeds. normally characters destined for a half-line boundary get printed on the following line instead. so this is the "actually, let me sit right on the line" option. ✨
• -h, --tabs — output tabs instead of multiple spaces. crisp. clean. tab girl summer. 🌈
• -l, --lines number — buffer at least number lines in memory. by default, 128 lines are buffered. more lines = more brain space. 🧠
• -p, --pass — force unknown control sequences to be passed through unchanged. normally col filters out any control sequences other than those she recognizes and interprets herself (the ones listed below 👇). no gatekeeping, just vibes.
• -x, --spaces — output multiple spaces instead of tabs. the opposite of -h. pick your fighter. 🥊
• -H, --help — display help text and exit. your girl is helpful fr fr. 🫶
• -V, --version — display version and exit. main character announcement moment. ⭐

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📜 CONFORMING TO 📜

the col utility conforms to the Single UNIX Specification, Version 2. and just so you know — the -l option is an extension to the standard. she's extra, but officially extra. 💁

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🔥 NOTES 🔥

the control sequences for carriage motion that col understands, plus their decimal values, are all listed here. take notes bestie, this is the lore:

• ESC-7 — reverse line feed (escape then 7)
• ESC-8 — half reverse line feed (escape then 8)
• ESC-9 — half forward line feed (escape then 9)
• backspace — moves back one column (8); ignored in the first column
• newline — forward line feed (10); also does carriage return
• carriage return — (13)
• shift in — shift to normal character set (15)
• shift out — shift to alternate character set (14)
• space — moves forward one column (32)
• tab — moves forward to next tab stop (9)
• vertical tab — reverse line feed (11)

all unrecognized control characters and escape sequences are discarded. gone. blocked. 🙈

col keeps track of the character set as characters are read, and makes sure the character set is correct when they are output. she's paying attention, always. 👀

if the input attempts to back up to the last flushed line, col will display a warning message. so like… don't do that. consider this your heads-up. ⚠️

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🎀 HISTORY 🎀

a col command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX. vintage. archival. legendary. she's been that girl since the beginning. 👑

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🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

expand(1), nroff(1), tbl(1) — go read those too, they're all in the group chat. 💜

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💌 REPORTING BUGS 💌

for bug reports, use the issue tracker at:

https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues

if something's broken, say it with your chest (politely, in the issue tracker). 🐛

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🍓 AVAILABILITY 🍓

the col command is part of the util-linux package, which can be downloaded from the Linux Kernel Archive at:

https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/

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okay that's the whole page, bestie. this one's util-linux 2.42.4, dated 2026-09-21, and it's giving COL(1) energy from start to finish. stay filtering, stay forward-line-feeding, and remember — no reverse line feeds, no problems. periodt. 💖✨🦋🌸💅