$ echo 'a b' | column -t a  bThere are 2 spaces between a and b in the output. How can I make column use only one space for separation when possible?EDIT 2: Changed data to include more cases$ cat data 1 2 b20 12.5 something300 12.8 as600 16 asrgty1200 4.9 srty1800 33.5 sry10000 1.5 sty200000 1.5 sty$ column -t < data1       2     b20      12.5  something300     12.8  as600     16    asrgty1200    4.9   srty1800    33.5  sry10000   1.5   sty200000  1.5   sty$  column -t -s '' < data1 2 b20 12.5 something300 12.8 as600 16 asrgty1200 4.9 srty1800 33.5 sry10000 1.5 sty200000 1.5 sty$ column -t -s ' ' < data1       2     b20      12.5  something300     12.8  as600     16    asrgty1200    4.9   srty1800    33.5  sry10000   1.5   sty200000  1.5   sty$ column -t < data | sed -re 's/  / /g'1    2   b20   12.5 something300   12.8 as600   16  asrgty1200  4.9  srty1800  33.5 sry10000  1.5  sty200000 1.5  sty$ column -t < data | sed -re 's/  / /'1      2     b20     12.5  something300    12.8  as600    16    asrgty1200   4.9   srty1800   33.5  sry10000  1.5   sty200000 1.5   styExpected1      2    b20     12.5 something300    12.8 as600    16   asrgty1200   4.9  srty1800   33.5 sry10000  1.5  sty200000 1.5  styNote:Please don't give sed hacks that work for this specific case. Questions on SE should be useful to others and not limited to highly specific data formats.
Make `column` use a single space as column separators in output
columns;text formatting