Annotation of src/usr.bin/fmt/fmt.1, Revision 1.8
1.8 ! aaron 1: .\" $OpenBSD: fmt.1,v 1.7 1999/07/04 11:53:54 aaron Exp $
1.1 deraadt 2: .\"
3: .\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1990, 1993
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34: .\" @(#)fmt.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
35: .\"
1.4 millert 36: .\" Modified by Gareth McCaughan to describe the new version of `fmt'
37: .\" rather than the old one.
1.1 deraadt 38: .Dd June 6, 1993
39: .Dt FMT 1
40: .Os
41: .Sh NAME
42: .Nm fmt
43: .Nd simple text formatter
44: .Sh SYNOPSIS
1.6 aaron 45: .Nm fmt
1.4 millert 46: .Op Fl cmps
47: .Op Fl d Ar chars
48: .Op Fl l Ar num
49: .Op Fl t Ar num
1.1 deraadt 50: .Oo
51: .Ar goal
52: .Op Ar maximum
53: .Oc
54: .Op name ...
55: .Sh DESCRIPTION
1.7 aaron 56: .Nm
1.1 deraadt 57: is a simple text formatter which reads the concatenation of input
58: files (or standard input if none are given) and produces on standard
59: output a version of its input with lines as close to the
60: .Ar goal
61: length
1.4 millert 62: as possible without exceeding the
1.5 aaron 63: .Ar maximum .
1.4 millert 64: The
1.1 deraadt 65: .Ar goal
66: length defaults
1.4 millert 67: to 65 and the
68: .Ar maximum
69: to 10 more than the goal length. The spacing at the beginning of the
1.1 deraadt 70: input lines is preserved in the output, as are blank lines and
71: interword spacing.
1.3 millert 72: .Pp
1.8 ! aaron 73: The options are as follows:
1.4 millert 74: .Bl -tag -width indent
75: .It Fl c
76: Center the text, line by line. In this case, most of the other
77: options are ignored; no splitting or joining of lines is done.
78: .It Fl m
79: Try to format mail header lines contained in the input sensibly.
80: .It Fl p
81: Allow indented paragraphs. Without the
82: .Fl p
83: flag, any change in the amount of whitespace at the start of a line
84: results in a new paragraph being begun.
85: .It Fl s
86: Collapse whitespace inside lines, so that multiple whitespace
87: characters are turned into a single space. (Or, at the end of a
88: sentence, a double space.)
89: .It Fl d Ar chars
90: Treat the
91: .Ar chars
92: (and no others) as sentence-ending characters. By default the
93: sentence-ending characters are full stop, question mark and
94: exclamation mark. Remember that some characters may need to be
95: escaped to protect them from your shell.
96: .It Fl l Ar number
97: Replace multiple spaces with tabs at the start of each output
98: line, if possible.
99: .Ar number
100: spaces will be replaced with one tab.
101: .It Fl t Ar number
102: Assume that the input files' tabs assume
103: .Ar number
104: spaces per tab stop. The default is 8.
105: .El
1.1 deraadt 106: .Pp
1.7 aaron 107: .Nm
1.1 deraadt 108: is meant to format mail messages prior to sending, but may also be useful
109: for other simple tasks.
110: For instance,
111: within visual mode of the
112: .Xr ex 1
1.7 aaron 113: editor (e.g.,
1.1 deraadt 114: .Xr vi 1 )
115: the command
116: .Pp
117: .Dl \&!}fmt
118: .Pp
119: will reformat a paragraph,
120: evening the lines.
121: .Sh SEE ALSO
1.4 millert 122: .Xr mail 1 ,
123: .Xr nroff 1
1.1 deraadt 124: .Sh HISTORY
1.4 millert 125: An
126: .Nm
1.1 deraadt 127: command appeared in
128: .Bx 3 .
1.4 millert 129: .Pp
130: The version described herein is a complete rewrite and appeared in
131: .Bx Open
132: 2.4.
1.1 deraadt 133: .\" .Sh AUTHOR
134: .\" Kurt Shoens
135: .\" .br
136: .\" Liz Allen (added goal length concept)
1.4 millert 137: .\" The above are the authors of the old `fmt' program;
138: .\" the present one was written by Gareth McCaughan.
1.1 deraadt 139: .Sh BUGS
140: The program was designed to be simple and fast \- for more complex
141: operations, the standard text processors are likely to be more appropriate.
1.4 millert 142: .Pp
143: When the first line of an indented paragraph is very long (more than
144: about twice the goal length), the indentation in the output can be
145: wrong.
146: .Pp
147: .Nm
148: is not infallible in guessing what lines are mail headers and what
149: lines are not.
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