The justification type options -c,-j,-l,-r,-x,-X described below apply to the columns which follow them as arguments, or to all columns if none are specified on the command line. If the last argument is a justification option, then all columns not named on the command line will be justified according to that type.

-e

expand the column to the next TAB stop. Ordinarily a column is only as wide as the widest data or column name.

-fc

c (not TAB) is the input column separation character.

-tc

c (not TAB) is the output column separation character.

-h

suppress justification of the header row. This allows for further processing by programs which address column names.

-Dn

turn on debugging at level n, or 1 if n is not specified.

-l

left justify

-c

center

-r

right justify

-j

restore default justification, as described above.

-x,-X

format numerical columns (integer and floating point) with comma-separated thousands columns and period decimals (-x) or with period-separated thousands columns and comma decimals (-X).

$ cat credit
Name    Credit
----    -------
Anderson  23.49
Ho  145.98
Johnson 1.1

$ justify < credit
Name            Credit
--------        ------
Anderson         23.49
Ho              145.98
Johnson           1.10

In the table below, we want the Item column centered; the Value column to be formated with commas, and all the other columns to have default justification:

$ cat inventory
Item    Amount  Cost    Value   Description
----    ------  ----    -----   -----------
1       4       50.1            rubber gloves
2       100     5.230   500     test tubes
3       5       80      400     clamps
4       23      19      437     plates
5       99      24      2376    cleaning cloth
6       89      147     13083   bunsen burners

$ justify -c Item -x Value -j < inventory
Item    Amount  Cost    Value   Description
----    ------  ------- ------  --------------
 1           4   50.10     150  rubber gloves
 2         100    5.230    500  test tubes
 3           5   80        400  clamps
 4          23   19        437  plates
 5          99   24      2,376  cleaning cloth
 6          89  147     13,083  bunsen burners