Split long output into two columns

Question

Is there a simple utility or script to columnate the output from one of my scripts? I have data in some form:

A aldkhasdfljhaf
B klajsdfhalsdfh
C salkjsdjkladdag
D lseuiorlhisnflkc
E sdjklfhnslkdfhn
F kjhnakjshddnaskjdh

but if this becomes two long, write the data in the following form (where still vertically ordered):

A aldkhasdfljhaf    D lseuiorlhisnflkc
B klajsdfhalsdfh    E sdjklfhnslkdfhn
C salkjsdjkladdag   F kjhnakjshddnaskjdh

From reading the manpage, I don't think that this is something column would be appropriate for but I'm not sure. It's easy enough to split in the form:

A B 
C D 
E F

by only printing \n every second line (what my current script does). Any ideas? Thanks!

score 32 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 27 '20 at 01:47

32

column seems to be what you want:

$ cat file
A aldkhasdfljhaf
B klajsdfhalsdfh
C salkjsdjkladdag
D lseuiorlhisnflkc
E sdjklfhnslkdfhn

$ column file
A aldkhasdfljhaf    D lseuiorlhisnflkc
B klajsdfhalsdfh    E sdjklfhnslkdfhn
C salkjsdjkladdag   F kjhnakjshddnaskjdh

edited Jan 27 '20 at 01:47

Nick Bull

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answered Jul 04 '13 at 14:31

terdon

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I did try. But wrongly (with `-t)... But for yours to work reliably you probably need `--columns`. – Hauke Laging Jul 04 '13 at 14:43
I did try but for some reason I didn't realise that it depended on the width of your terminal window (seems obvious now)! – Hemmer Jul 04 '13 at 15:22
also I was testing this on two machines at once. Apparently the old version (circa 1993 on Scientific Linux) behaves differently to the newer 2004 version... – Hemmer Jul 04 '13 at 15:35

score 19 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 07 '15 at 01:12

19

To columnate the output, pr converts text files for printing:

-COLUMN, --columns=COLUMN: output COLUMN columns
      and print columns down, unless -a is used.

-t, --omit-header : omit page headers and trailers

e.g.

ls /etc | pr -2 -t
abrt                                gtk-2.0
acpi                                hal
adjtime                             hba.conf
agent.properties                    host.conf
aliases                             hosts
aliases.db                          hosts.allow
...

edited Apr 07 '15 at 01:12

don_crissti

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answered Jun 19 '14 at 12:57

Digix

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not working properly for large (long) file. – once May 07 '19 at 18:03

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 04 '13 at 14:39

3

You can split the file in two (with the same number of lines or the first file having one line more) and then do this:

paste file1 file2

If the length of the lines is too different then is may be necessary to use printf to adapth the lengths by padding with spaces.

answered Jul 04 '13 at 14:39

Hauke Laging

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Or `... | paste - -` when "splitting long output"... – don_crissti Apr 07 '15 at 01:17

slm · Answer 4 · 2013-07-05T23:20:02.983

1

You can use just plain columns:

$ cat test.txt | columns
A aldkhasdfljhaf             B klajsdfhalsdfh             C salkjsdjkladdag
D lseuiorlhisnflkc           E sdjklfhnslkdfhn            F kjhnakjshddnaskjdh

NOTE: the columns command is part of the autogen package on my Fedora 14 system.

$ rpm -qf /usr/bin/columns
autogen-5.9.4-7.fc12.x86_64

References

GNU autogen project page

edited Jul 05 '13 at 23:20

answered Jul 04 '13 at 15:00

slm

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`columns: command not found`. [autogen](http://www.gnu.org/software/autogen/)? – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Jul 05 '13 at 23:16
@Gilles - yes it's part of `autogen`. Just checked on my Fedora 14 system. I'll mention it in the answer as well. – slm Jul 05 '13 at 23:18

Split long output into two columns

4 Answers4

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