tab

A tiny Go utility that formats plain text into neatly aligned columns.

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Features

• Automatically aligns text into columns based on whitespace.
• Optional two-column mode (-2) for option → description formatting.
• Works with files or standard input.
• Portable, dependency-free Go program.
• Builds with TinyGo.
• Simple and fast — perfect for scripts or terminal output cleanup.

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Usage

tab [options] [file]

If no file is specified, tab reads from stdin.

Options

Option	Description
-2	Split each line into two columns: the first word in the left column, and the rest of the line in the right column.
-h, --help	Show help and exit.

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Examples

Normal column alignment

Input (data.txt):

Name Age City
Anne 32 Oslo
Birger 7 Bergen
Camilla 54 Trondheim

Run:

tab data.txt

Output:

Name     Age 	City
Anne     32  	Oslo
Birger   7   	Bergen
Camilla  54  	Trondheim

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Two-column help-style formatting

Input (help.txt):

--help Show this help message and exit
--version Print version information

Run:

tab -2 help.txt

Output:

--help   	Show this help message and exit
--version	Print version information
--config 	<file> Use the specified configuration file

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Build

go build

or more optimised:

go build -ldflags "-s -w"

or very optimised if you have TinyGo installed:

tinygo build -gc=leaking -panic=print -no-debug -opt=z

Then copy the binary somewhere in your $PATH, for example:

mv tab ~/bin

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Licence

MIT License © 2025 Feel free to copy, modify, and use.