cols command for columnar output

[Stephen Jungels]

Because I needed nice columnar output similar to the ls command's simple
file list, I went in and ripped out the columnar logic from GNU ls and
created a nice simple "cols" command.  It does one thing only and does it
well, like a good UNIX command should.

(pr isn't good enough because it requires you to guess how many columns will
fit across the screen, and it truncates long strings.  cols makes each
column just wide enough for its longest string and fits as many columns as
possible across the screen.)

I later discovered the BSD column command, which is similar, but GNU doesn't
seem to have anything like it (or does it?).  My source is GPL licensed and
coreutils seems to be the logical place for it because it is a basic text
formatting command.  I am offering to contribute it.

Thoughts?


--Stephen

cols.tar
Description: Macintosh archive