title: How to write output of a bash command in tabular format with a pre-defined spacing
body: <pre><code> 2   0   0   184
   2   0   0   184
   765311      61423       6454323302  470948
   598500      678403      6454288800  1810469
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I used <code>grep &lt;command output&gt; | cut -d ':' -f 3 | column -x &gt;&gt; $temp</code> to write data in tabular format. But there seem to be huge difference in length of strings which causes the table to skew. I need to format these with equal spacing. How can I do that? </p>
  
  <p>Edit: The file that the command runs on contains text as following:</p>
  
  <pre><code>total_STDIO_OPENS: 176400
  total_STDIO_FDOPENS: 0
  total_STDIO_READS: 5881999200
  total_STDIO_WRITES: 276435
  total_STDIO_SEEKS: 0
  total_STDIO_FLUSHES: 0
  total_STDIO_BYTES_WRITTEN: 7689144
  total_STDIO_BYTES_READ: 53954527200
  total_STDIO_MAX_BYTE_READ: 917480
  total_STDIO_MAX_BYTE_WRITTEN: 176
  total_STDIO_FASTEST_RANK: 81759
  total_STDIO_FASTEST_RANK_BYTES: 917712
  total_STDIO_SLOWEST_RANK: 137230
  total_STDIO_SLOWEST_RANK_BYTES: 917729
  total_STDIO_F_META_TIME: 235319.135093
  total_STDIO_F_WRITE_TIME: 2.271446
  total_STDIO_F_READ_TIME: 1204.541221
  total_STDIO_F_OPEN_START_TIMESTAMP: 0.000000
  total_STDIO_F_CLOSE_START_TIMESTAMP: 0.000000
  total_STDIO_F_WRITE_START_TIMESTAMP: 6.714122
  total_STDIO_F_READ_START_TIMESTAMP: 0.000000
  total_STDIO_F_OPEN_END_TIMESTAMP: 6.782347
  total_STDIO_F_CLOSE_END_TIMESTAMP: 6.856372
  total_STDIO_F_WRITE_END_TIMESTAMP: 346.306913
  total_STDIO_F_READ_END_TIMESTAMP: 6.856351
  total_STDIO_F_FASTEST_RANK_TIME: 0.000000
  total_STDIO_F_SLOWEST_RANK_TIME: 0.000000
  total_STDIO_F_VARIANCE_RANK_TIME: 0.000000
  total_STDIO_F_VARIANCE_RANK_BYTES: 0.000000
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I am <code>grep</code>'ing using <code>grep -Ein 'total_stdio_read|total_posix_write|total_stdio_write|total_posix_read' $file | cut -d ':' -f 3 | column -x &gt;&gt; $temp</code></p>
  
  <p>Desired output is:</p>
  
  <pre><code>2           0           0           184
  2           0           0           184
  765311      61423       6454323302  470948
  598500      678403      6454288800  1810469
  </code></pre>