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Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 22:01:17 +0100
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To: Sami Kerola <kerolasa@iki.fi>
CC: util-linux@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] column: make defined separator to be non-greedy
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On 09/26/2012 09:45 PM, Sami Kerola wrote:
> This patch changes interpretation of subsequent delimeter interpretation.
> Earlier version merged columns that had null string as content together,
> which lead to output as visualized below.
>
> $ printf "a:b:c\n1::3\n" | column  -t -s ':'
> a  b  c
> 1  3
>
> The number 3 has wrong column, which this patch takes care of, and alters
> the output following way.
>
> $ printf "a:b:c\n1::3\n" | column  -t -s ':'
> a  b  c
> 1     3
>
> This patch does not alter the default case, e.g., subsequent white spaces
> are understood as separator of the same field, and the beginning of line
> white spaces are being ignored together.
>
> Signed-off-by: Sami Kerola<kerolasa@iki.fi>

The new operation makes sense to me.
You can always get the previous operation
by filtering through tr -s ':' first.

cheers,
Pádraig.