Add Format And Display Small Amounts Of Columnar Data as a Unix TIL

README.md

@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ working across different projects via [VisualMode](https://www.visualmode.dev/).
 
 For a steady stream of TILs, [sign up for my newsletter](https://visualmode.kit.com/newsletter).
 
-_1730 TILs and counting..._
+_1731 TILs and counting..._
 
 See some of the other learning resources I work on:
 
@@ -1675,6 +1675,7 @@ If you've learned something here, support my efforts writing daily TILs by
 - [Fix Previous Command With fc](unix/fix-previous-command-with-fc.md)
 - [Fix Shim Path After asdf Upgrade](unix/fix-shim-path-after-asdf-upgrade.md)
 - [Fix Unlinked Node Binaries With asdf](unix/fix-unlinked-node-binaries-with-asdf.md)
+- [Format And Display Small Amounts Of Columnar Data](unix/format-and-display-small-amounts-of-columnar-data.md)
 - [Forward Multiple Ports Over SSH](unix/forward-multiple-ports-over-ssh.md)
 - [Generate A SAML Key And Certificate Pair](unix/generate-a-saml-key-and-certificate-pair.md)
 - [Generate A Sequence Of Numbered Items](unix/generate-a-sequence-of-numbered-items.md)

unix/format-and-display-small-amounts-of-columnar-data.md

@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+# Format And Display Small Amounts Of Columnar Data
+
+In [_List Processes Running Across All (tmux)
+Sessions](tmux/list-processes-running-across-all-sessions.md), I showed an
+example of piping some data from `tmux` to the `column -t` command to nicely format
+and display the columnar data as a table. By default is uses spaces as the
+delimiter.
+
+```bash
+❯ tmux list-panes -a -F "#{session_name}:#{window_index}.#{pane_index} #{pane_pid} #{pane_current_command}" \
+  | column -t
+
+PLP:1.1             62364  zsh
+TIL:1.1             62345  nvim
+TIL:1.2             65838  task
+TIL:2.1             11428  tmux
+client-app:1.1      62373  ssh
+client-app:1.2      10796  zsh
+client-app:1.3      63081  zsh
+client-app:2.1      61115  overmind
+client-app:3.1      82608  zsh
+visualmode-dev:1.1  52237  zsh
+```
+
+This can be useful for formatting data from all kinds of commands and tools.
+Sometimes the columns of data are separated by something other than spaces. For
+instance, here is some git branch information (for my [dotfiles
+repo](https://github.com/jbranchaud/dotfiles)) separated by the `|` character.
+To format that with `column`, I need to also include the `-s '|'` flag to
+override the delimiter.
+
+```bash
+❯ git for-each-ref --format='%(refname:short)|%(authordate:short)|%(authorname)' refs/heads/ \
+  | column -t -s '|'
+
+claude/sync-dotfiles-011CUP87cRV6c51eEi3Chg99  2025-10-22  jbranchaud
+jb/add-rhubarb-for-fugitive-github-browse      2025-11-02  jbranchaud
+jb/fix-hardcoded-paths                         2025-11-02  jbranchaud
+jb/set-nvim-to-default-manpager                2025-10-19  jbranchaud
+main                                           2026-01-10  jbranchaud
+master                                         2025-10-30  Dorian Karter
+my-dotfiles                                    2025-11-01  jbranchaud
+upstream-master                                2026-01-01  Dorian Karter
+```