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These commands reformat the contents of files.
fmt fills and joins lines to produce output lines of (at most)
a given number of characters (75 by default). Synopsis:
fmt [option]... [file]...
fmt reads from the specified file arguments (or standard
input if none), and writes to standard output.
By default, blank lines, spaces between words, and indentation are
preserved in the output; successive input lines with different
indentation are not joined; tabs are expanded on input and introduced on
output.
fmt prefers breaking lines at the end of a sentence, and tries to
avoid line breaks after the first word of a sentence or before the last
word of a sentence. A sentence break is defined as either the end
of a paragraph or a word ending in any of `.?!', followed by two
spaces or end of line, ignoring any intervening parentheses or quotes.
Like TeX, fmt reads entire "paragraphs" before choosing line
breaks; the algorithm is a variant of that in "Breaking Paragraphs Into
Lines" (Donald E. Knuth and Michael F. Plass, Software--Practice
and Experience, 11 (1981), 1119--1184).
The program accepts the following options. Also see section Common options.
- `-c'
- `--crown-margin'
- @opindex -c
@opindex --crown-margin
Crown margin mode: preserve the indentation of the first two
lines within a paragraph, and align the left margin of each subsequent
line with that of the second line.
- `-t'
- `--tagged-paragraph'
- @opindex -t
@opindex --tagged-paragraph
Tagged paragraph mode: like crown margin mode, except that if
indentation of the first line of a paragraph is the same as the
indentation of the second, the first line is treated as a one-line
paragraph.
- `-s'
- `--split-only'
- @opindex -s
@opindex --split-only
Split lines only. Do not join short lines to form longer ones. This
prevents sample lines of code, and other such "formatted" text from
being unduly combined.
- `-u'
- `--uniform-spacing'
- @opindex -u
@opindex --uniform-spacing
Uniform spacing. Reduce spacing between words to one space, and spacing
between sentences to two spaces.
- `-width'
- `-w width'
- `--width=width'
- @opindex -width
@opindex -w
@opindex --width
Fill output lines up to width characters (default 75).
fmt
initially tries to make lines about 7% shorter than this, to give it
room to balance line lengths.
- `-p prefix'
- `--prefix=prefix'
- Only lines beginning with prefix (possibly preceded by whitespace)
are subject to formatting. The prefix and any preceding whitespace is
stripped for the formatting and then re-attached to each formatted output
line. One use is to format certain kinds of program comments, while
leaving the code unchanged.
pr writes each file (`-' means standard input), or
standard input if none are given, to standard output, paginating and
optionally outputting in multicolumn format. Synopsis:
pr [option]... [file]...
By default, a 5-line header is printed: two blank lines; a line with the
date, the filename, and the page count; and two more blank lines. A
five line footer (entirely) is also printed.
Form feeds in the input cause page breaks in the output.
The program accepts the following options. Also see section Common options.
- `+page'
- Begin printing with page page.
- `-column'
- @opindex -column
Produce column-column output and print columns down. The column
width is automatically decreased as column increases; unless you
use the `-w' option to increase the page width as well, this option
might well cause some input to be truncated.
- `-a'
- @opindex -a
Print columns across rather than down.
- `-b'
- @opindex -b
Balance columns on the last page.
- `-c'
- @opindex -c
Print control characters using hat notation (e.g., `^G'); print
other unprintable characters in octal backslash notation. By default,
unprintable characters are not changed.
- `-d'
- @opindex -d
Double space the output.
- `-e[in-tabchar[in-tabwidth]]'
- @opindex -e
Expand tabs to spaces on input. Optional argument in-tabchar is
the input tab character (default is TAB). Second optional
argument in-tabwidth is the input tab character's width (default
is 8).
- `-f'
- `-F'
- @opindex -F
@opindex -f
Use a formfeed instead of newlines to separate output pages.
- `-h header'
- @opindex -h
Replace the filename in the header with the string header.
- `-i[out-tabchar[out-tabwidth]]'
- @opindex -i
Replace spaces with tabs on output. Optional argument out-tabchar
is the output tab character (default is TAB). Second optional
argument out-tabwidth is the output tab character's width (default
is 8).
- `-l n'
- @opindex -l
Set the page length to n (default 66) lines. If n is less
than 10, the headers and footers are omitted, as if the `-t' option
had been given.
- `-m'
- @opindex -m
Print all files in parallel, one in each column.
- `-n[number-separator[digits]]'
- @opindex -n
Precede each column with a line number; with parallel files (`-m'),
precede each line with a line number. Optional argument
number-separator is the character to print after each number
(default is TAB). Optional argument digits is the number of
digits per line number (default is 5).
- `-o n'
- @opindex -o
Indent each line with n (default is zero) spaces wide, i.e., set
the left margin. The total page width is `n' plus the width set
with the `-w' option.
- `-r'
- @opindex -r
Do not print a warning message when an argument file cannot be
opened. (The exit status will still be nonzero, however.)
- `-s[c]'
- @opindex -s
Separate columns by the single character c. If c is
omitted, the default is space; if this option is omitted altogether, the
default is TAB.
- `-t'
- @opindex -t
Do not print the usual 5-line header and the 5-line footer on each page,
and do not fill out the bottoms of pages (with blank lines or
formfeeds).
- `-v'
- @opindex -v
Print unprintable characters in octal backslash notation.
- `-w n'
- @opindex -w
Set the page width to n (default is 72) columns.
fold writes each file (`-' means standard input), or
standard input if none are given, to standard output, breaking long
lines. Synopsis:
fold [option]... [file]...
By default, fold breaks lines wider than 80 columns. The output
is split into as many lines as necessary.
fold counts screen columns by default; thus, a tab may count more
than one column, backspace decreases the column count, and carriage
return sets the column to zero.
The program accepts the following options. Also see section Common options.
- `-b'
- `--bytes'
- @opindex -b
@opindex --bytes
Count bytes rather than columns, so that tabs, backspaces, and carriage
returns are each counted as taking up one column, just like other
characters.
- `-s'
- `--spaces'
- @opindex -s
@opindex --spaces
Break at word boundaries: the line is broken after the last blank before
the maximum line length. If the line contains no such blanks, the line
is broken at the maximum line length as usual.
- `-w width'
- `--width=width'
- @opindex -w
@opindex --width
Use a maximum line length of width columns instead of 80.
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