1.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1990, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 13.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 14.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 15.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 16.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 17.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 18.\" without specific prior written permission. 19.\" 20.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 21.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 22.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 23.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 24.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 25.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 26.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 27.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 28.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 29.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 30.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 31.\" 32.\" @(#)fmt.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93 33.\" $FreeBSD$ 34.\" 35.\" Modified by Gareth McCaughan to describe the new version of `fmt' 36.\" rather than the old one. 37.Dd June 25, 2000 38.Dt FMT 1 39.Os 40.Sh NAME 41.Nm fmt 42.Nd simple text formatter 43.Sh SYNOPSIS 44.Nm fmt 45.Op Fl cmnps 46.Op Fl d Ar chars 47.Op Fl l Ar num 48.Op Fl t Ar num 49.Op Ar goal Oo Ar maximum Oc | Fl Ns Ar width | Fl w Ar width 50.Op Ar 51.Sh DESCRIPTION 52The 53.Nm 54utility is a simple text formatter which reads the concatenation of input 55files (or standard input if none are given) and produces on standard 56output a version of its input with lines as close to the 57.Ar goal 58length 59as possible without exceeding the 60.Ar maximum . 61The 62.Ar goal 63length defaults 64to 65 and the 65.Ar maximum 66to 10 more than the 67.Ar goal 68length. 69Alternatively, a single 70.Ar width 71parameter can be specified either by prepending a hyphen to it or by using 72.Fl w . 73For example, 74.Dq Li fmt -w 72 , 75.Dq Li fmt -72 , 76and 77.Dq Li fmt 72 72 78all produce identical output. 79The spacing at the beginning of the input lines is preserved in the output, 80as are blank lines and interword spacing. 81Lines are joined or split only at white space; that is, words are never 82joined or hyphenated. 83.Pp 84The options are as follows: 85.Bl -tag -width indent 86.It Fl c 87Center the text, line by line. 88In this case, most of the other 89options are ignored; no splitting or joining of lines is done. 90.It Fl m 91Try to format mail header lines contained in the input sensibly. 92.It Fl n 93Format lines beginning with a 94.Ql \&. 95(dot) character. 96Normally, 97.Nm 98does not fill these lines, for compatibility with 99.Xr nroff 1 . 100.It Fl p 101Allow indented paragraphs. 102Without the 103.Fl p 104flag, any change in the amount of whitespace at the start of a line 105results in a new paragraph being begun. 106.It Fl s 107Collapse whitespace inside lines, so that multiple whitespace 108characters are turned into a single space. 109(Or, at the end of a 110sentence, a double space.) 111.It Fl d Ar chars 112Treat the 113.Ar chars 114(and no others) as sentence-ending characters. 115By default the 116sentence-ending characters are full stop 117.Pq Ql \&. , 118question mark 119.Pq Ql \&? 120and exclamation mark 121.Pq Ql \&! . 122Remember that some characters may need to be 123escaped to protect them from your shell. 124.It Fl l Ar number 125Replace multiple spaces with tabs at the start of each output 126line, if possible. 127Each 128.Ar number 129spaces will be replaced with one tab. 130The default is 8. 131If 132.Ar number 133is 0, spaces are preserved. 134.It Fl t Ar number 135Assume that the input files' tabs assume 136.Ar number 137spaces per tab stop. 138The default is 8. 139.El 140.Pp 141The 142.Nm 143utility 144is meant to format mail messages prior to sending, but may also be useful 145for other simple tasks. 146For instance, 147within visual mode of the 148.Xr ex 1 149editor (e.g., 150.Xr vi 1 ) 151the command 152.Pp 153.Dl \&!}fmt 154.Pp 155will reformat a paragraph, 156evening the lines. 157.Sh SEE ALSO 158.Xr mail 1 , 159.Xr nroff 1 160.Sh HISTORY 161The 162.Nm 163command appeared in 164.Bx 3 . 165.Pp 166The version described herein is a complete rewrite and appeared in 167.Fx 4.4 . 168.Sh AUTHORS 169.An Kurt Shoens 170.An Liz Allen 171(added 172.Ar goal 173length concept) 174.An Gareth McCaughan 175.Sh BUGS 176The program was designed to be simple and fast \- for more complex 177operations, the standard text processors are likely to be more appropriate. 178.Pp 179When the first line of an indented paragraph is very long (more than 180about twice the goal length), the indentation in the output can be 181wrong. 182.Pp 183The 184.Nm 185utility is not infallible in guessing what lines are mail headers and what 186lines are not. 187