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28 .\" @(#)fmt.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
30 .\" Modified by Gareth McCaughan to describe the new version of `fmt'
31 .\" rather than the old one.
37 .Nd simple text formatter
44 .Op Ar goal Oo Ar maximum Oc | Fl Ns Ar width | Fl w Ar width
49 utility is a simple text formatter which reads the concatenation of input
50 files (or standard input if none are given) and produces on standard
51 output a version of its input with lines as close to the
54 as possible without exceeding the
64 Alternatively, a single
66 parameter can be specified either by prepending a hyphen to it or by using
73 all produce identical output.
74 The spacing at the beginning of the input lines is preserved in the output,
75 as are blank lines and interword spacing.
76 Lines are joined or split only at white space; that is, words are never
79 The options are as follows:
80 .Bl -tag -width indent
82 Center the text, line by line.
83 In this case, most of the other
84 options are ignored; no splitting or joining of lines is done.
86 Try to format mail header lines contained in the input sensibly.
88 Format lines beginning with a
92 Allow indented paragraphs.
95 flag, any change in the amount of whitespace at the start of a line
96 results in a new paragraph being begun.
98 Collapse whitespace inside lines, so that multiple whitespace
99 characters are turned into a single space.
101 sentence, a double space.)
105 (and no others) as sentence-ending characters.
107 sentence-ending characters are full stop
113 Remember that some characters may need to be
114 escaped to protect them from your shell.
116 Replace multiple spaces with tabs at the start of each output
120 spaces will be replaced with one tab.
124 is 0, spaces are preserved.
126 Assume that the input files' tabs assume
135 is meant to format mail messages prior to sending, but may also be useful
136 for other simple tasks.
138 within visual mode of the
146 will reformat a paragraph,
153 environment variables affect the execution of
158 Center the text in standard input:
159 .Bd -literal -offset indent
160 $ echo -e 'The merit of all things\enlies\enin their difficulty' | fmt -c
161 The merit of all things
166 Format the text in standard input collapsing spaces:
167 .Bd -literal -offset indent
168 $ echo -e 'Multiple spaces will be collapsed' | fmt -s
169 Multiple spaces will be collapsed
180 The version described herein is a complete rewrite and appeared in
190 The program was designed to be simple and fast \- for more complex
191 operations, the standard text processors are likely to be more appropriate.
193 When the first line of an indented paragraph is very long (more than
194 about twice the goal length), the indentation in the output can be
199 utility is not infallible in guessing what lines are mail headers and what