unexpand(1)

unexpand1

Convert spaces to tabs

Usage

unexpand [OPTION] ... [FILE] ...

Overview

Convert blanks in each FILE to tabs, writing to standard output.

With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

-a, --all

convert all blanks, instead of just initial blanks

--first-only

convert only leading sequences of blanks (overrides -a)

-t, --tabs=N

have tabs N characters apart instead of 8 (enables -a)

-t, --tabs=LIST

use comma separated list of tab positions. The last specified position can be prefixed with '/' to specify a tab size to use after the last explicitly specified tab stop. Also a prefix of '+' can be used to align remaining tab stops relative to the last specified tab stop instead of the first column

--help

display this help and exit

--version

output version information and exit

Releases

19 releases since Debian 1.1 (Buzz); the text changed 15 times.

  1. 1.1
  2. 1.2–2.1
  3. 2.2
  4. 3.0
  5. 3.1
  6. 4.0
  7. 5.0
  8. 6.0
  9. 7
  10. 8
  11. 9
  12. 10
  13. 11
  14. 12
  15. 13
  16. Arch

--first-only since Debian 5.0 (Lenny).

- until Debian 2.1 (Slink).

Author

Written by David MacKenzie.

Reporting bugs

Report bugs to: <[email protected]>.
Report any translation bugs to: <https://translationproject.org/team/>.
GNU coreutils home page: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>

From coreutils 9.12-2 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.