unexpand

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

Convert blanks in each FILE to tabs, writing to standard output. With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.

Options

--all, -a

convert all blanks, instead of just initial blanks

--first-only

convert only leading sequences of blanks (overrides -a)

--tabs=<N, LIST>, -t <N, LIST>

use comma separated LIST of tab positions or have tabs N characters apart instead of 8 (enables -a)

--no-utf8, -U

interpret input file as 8-bit ASCII rather than UTF-8

Examples

Convert blanks in each file to tabs, writing to stdout:

unexpand {{path/to/file}}

Convert blanks to tabs, reading from stdout:

unexpand

Convert all blanks, instead of just initial blanks:

unexpand -a {{path/to/file}}

Convert only leading sequences of blanks (overrides -a):

unexpand --first-only {{path/to/file}}

Have tabs a certain number of characters apart, not 8 (enables -a):

unexpand -t {{number}} {{path/to/file}}

The examples are provided by the tldr-pages project under the CC BY 4.0 License.

Please note that, as uutils is a work in progress, some examples might fail.