[colug-432] Nice Plain Text Columns and Avoiding NIH

[jep200404 at columbus.rr.com]

On Sun, 7 Aug 2011 18:05:25 -0400 (EDT), Jim Wildman <jim at rossberry.com> wrote:

> On Sun, 7 Aug 2011, jep200404 at columbus.rr.com wrote:
> 
> > I have a plain text file with variable width fields delimited by tabs.
> > What filter program(s) are good at making the columns line up in
> > plain text output? 

> awk is your tool.  See printf output formatting in man awk.

I was hoping to avoid writing my own code for that. 
This seems like the kind of thing that has been solved many 
times before (like for the output of ls -l). 
I was hoping to avoid reinventing (or recoding) the wheel.