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Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 13.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 14.\" without specific prior written permission. 15.\" 16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 17.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 18.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 19.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 20.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 21.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 22.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 23.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 24.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 25.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 26.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 27.\" 28.\" @(#)fmt.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93 29.\" $FreeBSD$ 30.\" 31.\" Modified by Gareth McCaughan to describe the new version of `fmt' 32.\" rather than the old one. 33.Dd October 29, 2020 34.Dt FMT 1 35.Os 36.Sh NAME 37.Nm fmt 38.Nd simple text formatter 39.Sh SYNOPSIS 40.Nm 41.Op Fl cmnps 42.Op Fl d Ar chars 43.Op Fl l Ar num 44.Op Fl t Ar num 45.Op Ar goal Oo Ar maximum Oc | Fl Ns Ar width | Fl w Ar width 46.Op Ar 47.Sh DESCRIPTION 48The 49.Nm 50utility is a simple text formatter which reads the concatenation of input 51files (or standard input if none are given) and produces on standard 52output a version of its input with lines as close to the 53.Ar goal 54length 55as possible without exceeding the 56.Ar maximum . 57The 58.Ar goal 59length defaults 60to 65 and the 61.Ar maximum 62to 10 more than the 63.Ar goal 64length. 65Alternatively, a single 66.Ar width 67parameter can be specified either by prepending a hyphen to it or by using 68.Fl w . 69For example, 70.Dq Li fmt -w 72 , 71.Dq Li fmt -72 , 72and 73.Dq Li fmt 72 72 74all produce identical output. 75The spacing at the beginning of the input lines is preserved in the output, 76as are blank lines and interword spacing. 77Lines are joined or split only at white space; that is, words are never 78joined or hyphenated. 79.Pp 80The options are as follows: 81.Bl -tag -width indent 82.It Fl c 83Center the text, line by line. 84In this case, most of the other 85options are ignored; no splitting or joining of lines is done. 86.It Fl m 87Try to format mail header lines contained in the input sensibly. 88.It Fl n 89Format lines beginning with a 90.Ql \&. 91(dot) character. 92.It Fl p 93Allow indented paragraphs. 94Without the 95.Fl p 96flag, any change in the amount of whitespace at the start of a line 97results in a new paragraph being begun. 98.It Fl s 99Collapse whitespace inside lines, so that multiple whitespace 100characters are turned into a single space. 101(Or, at the end of a 102sentence, a double space.) 103.It Fl d Ar chars 104Treat the 105.Ar chars 106(and no others) as sentence-ending characters. 107By default the 108sentence-ending characters are full stop 109.Pq Ql \&. , 110question mark 111.Pq Ql \&? 112and exclamation mark 113.Pq Ql \&! . 114Remember that some characters may need to be 115escaped to protect them from your shell. 116.It Fl l Ar number 117Replace multiple spaces with tabs at the start of each output 118line, if possible. 119Each 120.Ar number 121spaces will be replaced with one tab. 122The default is 8. 123If 124.Ar number 125is 0, spaces are preserved. 126.It Fl t Ar number 127Assume that the input files' tabs assume 128.Ar number 129spaces per tab stop. 130The default is 8. 131.El 132.Pp 133The 134.Nm 135utility 136is meant to format mail messages prior to sending, but may also be useful 137for other simple tasks. 138For instance, 139within visual mode of the 140.Xr ex 1 141editor (e.g., 142.Xr vi 1 ) 143the command 144.Pp 145.Dl \&!}fmt 146.Pp 147will reformat a paragraph, 148evening the lines. 149.Sh ENVIRONMENT 150The 151.Ev LANG , LC_ALL 152and 153.Ev LC_CTYPE 154environment variables affect the execution of 155.Nm 156as described in 157.Xr environ 7 . 158.Sh EXAMPLES 159Center the text in standard input: 160.Bd -literal -offset indent 161$ echo -e 'The merit of all things\enlies\enin their difficulty' | fmt -c 162 The merit of all things 163 lies 164 in their difficulty 165.Ed 166.Pp 167Format the text in standard input collapsing spaces: 168.Bd -literal -offset indent 169$ echo -e 'Multiple spaces will be collapsed' | fmt -s 170Multiple spaces will be collapsed 171.Ed 172.Sh SEE ALSO 173.Xr fold 1 , 174.Xr mail 1 175.Sh HISTORY 176The 177.Nm 178command appeared in 179.Bx 3 . 180.Pp 181The version described herein is a complete rewrite and appeared in 182.Fx 4.4 . 183.Sh AUTHORS 184.An Kurt Shoens 185.An Liz Allen 186(added 187.Ar goal 188length concept) 189.An Gareth McCaughan 190.Sh BUGS 191The program was designed to be simple and fast \- for more complex 192operations, the standard text processors are likely to be more appropriate. 193.Pp 194When the first line of an indented paragraph is very long (more than 195about twice the goal length), the indentation in the output can be 196wrong. 197.Pp 198The 199.Nm 200utility is not infallible in guessing what lines are mail headers and what 201lines are not. 202