Format
unexpand [–Ba]
[–t tablist] [-W option[,option]...] [file
…]
Description
unexpand replaces
blank characters in the data from each file argument
with the most efficient use of tabs and spaces. If you do not specify
any files, unexpand reads the standard input.
The result is sent to standard output.
Backspace characters
are preserved. By default, unexpand compresses
only leading spaces into tabs; tab stops are set every eight spaces.
Options
unexpand supports
the following options:
- –B
- Disables the automatic conversion of tagged files. This option
is ignored if the filecodeset or pgmcodeset options
(-W option) are specified.
- –a
- Compresses spaces into tabs wherever the resulting output is shorter,
regardless of where the spaces occur in the line.
- –t tablist
- Specifies tab stops. The numbers in tablist are
delimited by blanks or commas. If tablist is
a single number, then unexpand places tab
stops every tablist positions. If tablist contains
multiple numbers, unexpand places tab stops
at those specific positions. Multiple numbers in tablist must
be in ascending order. This option, like the –a option,
compresses spaces to tabs at any appropriate point in the line. If
you specify –t, unexpand ignores
the presence or absence of –a.
- -W option[,option]...
- Specifies z/OS-specific options. The option keywords are case-sensitive. Possible
options are:
- filecodeset=codeset
- Performs text conversion from one code set to another when reading
from the file. The coded character set of the file is codeset. codeset can
be a code set name known to the system or a numeric coded character
set identifier (CCSID). Note that the command iconv -l lists
existing CCSIDs along with their corresponding code set names. The filecodeset and pgmcodeset options
can be used on files with any file tag.
If pgmcodeset is
specified but filecodeset is omitted, then
the default file code set is ISO8859-1 even if the file is tagged
with a different code set. If neither filecodeset nor pgmcodeset is
specified, text conversion will not occur unless automatic conversion
is enabled or the _TEXT_CONV environment variable indicates text conversion.
For more information about text conversion, see Controlling text conversion for z/OS UNIX shell commands.
If filecodeset or pgmcodeset is
specified, then automatic conversion is disabled for this command
invocation and the -B option is ignored
if it is also specified. See z/OS UNIX System Services Planning for
more information about automatic conversion.
When specifying values for filecodeset,
use the values that Unicode Service supports. For more information
about supported code sets, see z/OS Unicode Services User's Guide and Reference.
- pgmcodeset=codeset
- Performs text conversion from one code set to another when reading
from the file. The coded character set of the program (command) is codeset. codeset can
be a code set name known to the system or a numeric coded character
set identifier (CCSID). Note that the command iconv -l lists
existing CCSIDs along with their corresponding code set names. The filecodeset and pgmcodeset options
can be used on files with any file tag.
If filecodeset is
specified but pgmcodeset is omitted, then
the default program code set is IBM-1047. If neither filecodeset nor pgmcodeset is
specified, text conversion will not occur unless automatic conversion
is enabled or the _TEXT_CONV environment variable indicates text conversion.
For more information about text conversion, see Controlling text conversion for z/OS UNIX shell commands.
If filecodeset or pgmcodeset is
specified, then automatic conversion is disabled for this command
invocation and the -B option is ignored
if it is also specified. See z/OS UNIX System Services Planning for
more information about automatic conversion.
Restriction: The
only supported values for pgmcodeset are
IBM-1047 and 1047.
Examples
- To compress spaces in a text file into tabs every 3 positions:
unexpand -t 3 myTextFile
- To compress spaces in a text file containing ASCII characters
into tabs, assuming that
- The text file is untagged and you do not want to tag it or enable
automatic conversion, and
- You cannot alter the tag (for example, you are displaying an untagged
public text file or a read-only text file)
then issue: unexpand -a -W filecodeset=ISO8859-1,pgmcodeset=IBM-1047 myAsciiFile
- To compress spaces in a text file containing EBCDIC characters
into tabs, assuming that automatic conversion has been enabled but
the text file is incorrectly
tagged as UTF-8:
unexpand -a -B myMisTaggedFile
Localization
unexpand uses
the following localization variables:
- LANG
- LC_ALL
- LC_CTYPE
- LC_MESSAGES
- NLSPATH
See Localization for more
information.
Environment variables
unexpand uses
the following environment variable:
- _TEXT_CONV
- Contains text conversion information for the command. The text
conversion information is not used when either the -B option
or the filecodeset or pgmcodeset option
(-W option) is specified. For more information
about text conversion, see Controlling text conversion for z/OS UNIX shell commands.
Exit values
- 0
- Successful completion
- 1
- Failure due to any of the following:
- An incorrect command-line argument
- An inability to open the input files
- The code set is not valid
- Could not turn off automatic conversion
- Could not perform requested text conversion
Portability
POSIX.2 User Portability Extension, X/Open Portability Guide, 4.2BSD.
The –B and -W options
are extensions of the POSIX standard.
Related information
expand, pr