.TH justify "" "" "/rdb Command"
.PC "Left or right justify the columns of a table"
\fBjustify [-elrct'\fIc\fB'] [ \fIcolumn ... \fB] < \fItable\fR
.PP
.II "table^justify"
.II "column^justify"
.II "justify columns"
The command
.B justify
right-justifies the columns that contain only numbers, and
left-justifies the columns that contain any nonnumeric characters.
It also lines up floating-point numbers on their decimal points.
.PP
.B justify
improves the appearance of a table.
This makes it easier for you to read and edit.
It also makes a column of variable-length strings into one
length, by padding each string with spaces on the right.
Note that the extra spaces inserted to improve a table's appearance
could easily double or triple the size of the table.
This increased size not only takes up disk space, but slows processing of
.IR table .
You must decide whether appearance or size is more important.
.SH Options
.B justify
recognizes the following options:
.IP \fB\-e\fR
Expand the column to the next tab stop.
Ordinarily, a column is only as wide as the widest data or column name.
This improves the appear, but increases the size of the file.
.PP
The following options
override the default justifications (left-justify character strings,
right-justify numbers):
.IP \fB\-l\fR
(This is the letter ``el'', not the number one.)
Left-justify all named columns.
.IP \fB\-c\fR
Center all named columns.
.IP \fB\-r\fR
Right justify all named columns.
.PP
These options are sticky, meaning that if you follow an
.BR l ,
.BR c ,
or
.R r
option with several column names, each is treated according to
the option.
For example,
.B "\-l Description Account"
left justifies both
.B Account
and
.BR Description ,
regardless of the data each contains.
.PP
.IP "\fB\-t\(aa\fIc\fB\(aa\fR"
Use the character
.I c
as the column separator instead of tab.
.I c
can be any ASCII character.
Note, however, that once you process a table with this option,
you can no longer use
.B /rdb
commands on it, because all
.B /rdb
commands require tabs as column separators.
See the command
.B trim
for a discussion of how you can protect special characters from the shell.
.SH Example
One use of
.B justify
is to align columns.
Variable-length character columns (like names and
descriptions) destroy the alignment of columns.
For example, notice how the variable-length names cause the tabs to
break at different points in the following table:
.DM
Name    Credit
----    -------
Anderson  23.49
Ho  145.98
Johnson 1.15
.DE
.PP
One solution is to move the variable length column to the last column:
.DM
	column Credit Name < credit
.DE
.PP
The table now appears as follows:
.DM
Credit  Name    
------- ---------------
23.49   Anderson
145.98  Ho
1.15    Johnson
.DE
.PP
Another solution is to use
.B justify
to right-pad the
.B Name
column, and (while we're at it) align the floating point number in the
.BR Credit :
.DM
.ta 1.5i
Name       Credit
--------   ------
Anderson    23.49
Ho         145.98
Johnson      1.15
.DE
.PP
Remember that the file is now larger.
All of those extra blank spaces can double or triple the size of your file.
.PP
It is easier to enter the initial data into a table without
the padding characters.
Then you can use
.B justify
to pretty up the table.
.PP
When using the command
.B listtotable
to convert a list-format file to a table,
you may wish to use
.B justify
to make the resulting table readable.
.SH "See Also"
.B
column,
compresss,
listtotable,
trim
.R