[SOLVED] How to make (Bash's) column respect quoted text (file names)

Issue

I want to make column respect quoted column entries in order to optimise space.

cat testfile

123     "file name with spaces" tail
51    "longfilenamehere with spaces" head 
Monday "shortname" hands
Blue "very longfilename_______________here with spaces" feet 

Version with "column" which only respects spaces as column separators, the width of each column being determined by the widest entry

cat testfile | column -t

123     "file              name                             with     spaces"  tail
51      "longfilenamehere  with                             spaces"           head     
Monday  "shortname"                                                           hands                                              
Blue    "very              longfilename_______________here  with     spaces"  feet

Whereas what I want is

123     "file name with spaces"                            tail
51      "longfilenamehere with spaces"                     head
Monday  "shortname"                                        hands
Blue    "very longfilename_______________here with spaces" feet

Solution

xargs is capable of parsing quotes. It could take arguments and pass them to printf to output nicely separated output that could be feed to column.

$ cat testfile  | xargs printf '%s|"%s"|%s\n' | column -t -s'|'
123     "file name with spaces"                             tail
51      "longfilenamehere with spaces"                      head
Monday  "shortname"                                         hands
Blue    "very longfilename_______________here with spaces"  feet

Answered By - KamilCuk

Answer Checked By - Timothy Miller (WPSolving Admin)