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Diff for /src/usr.bin/fmt/fmt.1 between version 1.3 and 1.4

version 1.3, 1997/02/09 23:58:42

version 1.4, 1998/04/25 23:02:26

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.\" $OpenBSD$

.\" $NetBSD: fmt.1,v 1.3 1995/09/01 01:29:40 jtc Exp $

.\"

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.\"

.\" @(#)fmt.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93

.\"

.\" Modified by Gareth McCaughan to describe the new version of `fmt'

.\" rather than the old one.

.Dd June 6, 1993

.Dt FMT 1

.Os

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.Nm fmt

.Nd simple text formatter

.Sh SYNOPSIS

.Nm fmt

.Nm

.Fl c

.Op Fl cmps

.Op Fl d Ar chars

.Op Fl l Ar num

.Op Fl t Ar num

.Oo

.Ar goal

.Op Ar maximum

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output a version of its input with lines as close to the

.Ar goal

length

as possible without exceeding the maximum. The

as possible without exceeding the

.Ar maximum.

The

.Ar goal

length defaults

to 65 and the maximum to 75. The spacing at the beginning of the

to 65 and the

.Ar maximum

to 10 more than the goal length. The spacing at the beginning of the

input lines is preserved in the output, as are blank lines and

interword spacing.

.Pp

.Fl c

The following options are available:

instructs

.Bl -tag -width indent

.Nm fmt

.It Fl c

to center the text.

Center the text, line by line. In this case, most of the other

options are ignored; no splitting or joining of lines is done.

.It Fl m

Try to format mail header lines contained in the input sensibly.

.It Fl p

Allow indented paragraphs. Without the

.Fl p

flag, any change in the amount of whitespace at the start of a line

results in a new paragraph being begun.

.It Fl s

Collapse whitespace inside lines, so that multiple whitespace

characters are turned into a single space. (Or, at the end of a

sentence, a double space.)

.It Fl d Ar chars

Treat the

.Ar chars

(and no others) as sentence-ending characters. By default the

sentence-ending characters are full stop, question mark and

exclamation mark. Remember that some characters may need to be

escaped to protect them from your shell.

.It Fl l Ar number

Replace multiple spaces with tabs at the start of each output

line, if possible.

.Ar number

spaces will be replaced with one tab.

.It Fl t Ar number

Assume that the input files' tabs assume

.Ar number

spaces per tab stop. The default is 8.

.El

.Pp

.Nm Fmt

is meant to format mail messages prior to sending, but may also be useful

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will reformat a paragraph,

evening the lines.

.Sh SEE ALSO

.Xr nroff 1 ,

.Xr mail 1 ,

.Xr mail 1

.Xr nroff 1

.Sh HISTORY

The

.Nm fmt

.Nm

command appeared in

.Bx 3 .

.Pp

The version described herein is a complete rewrite and appeared in

.\" .Ox 2.4 .

.Bx Open

2.4.

.\" .Sh AUTHOR

.\" Kurt Shoens

.\" .br

.\" Liz Allen (added goal length concept)

.\" The above are the authors of the old `fmt' program;

.\" the present one was written by Gareth McCaughan.

.Sh BUGS

The program was designed to be simple and fast \- for more complex

operations, the standard text processors are likely to be more appropriate.

.Pp

When the first line of an indented paragraph is very long (more than

about twice the goal length), the indentation in the output can be

wrong.

.Pp

.Nm

is not infallible in guessing what lines are mail headers and what

lines are not.