In same directory time ls -al | awk '{print $1,$3}' real 0m0.008s user 0m0.000s sys 0m0.004s time ls -al | col 1 3 real 0m1.690s user 0m1.143s

In same directory time ls -al | awk '{print $1,$3}' real 0m0.008s user 0m0.000s sys 0m0.004s time ls -al | col 1 3 real 0m1.690s user 0m1.143s sys 0m0.173s While I appreciate the effort, it seems to me that this decreases the snappiness of the unix terminal experience for not much gain.