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. 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: src/usr.bin/fmt/fmt.1,v 1.7.2.3 2002/06/21 15:26:55 charnier Exp $ 30.\" $DragonFly: src/usr.bin/fmt/fmt.1,v 1.3 2007/07/29 17:27:45 swildner Exp $ 31.\" 32.\" Modified by Gareth McCaughan to describe the new version of `fmt' 33.\" rather than the old one. 34.Dd June 25, 2000 35.Dt FMT 1 36.Os 37.Sh NAME 38.Nm fmt 39.Nd simple text formatter 40.Sh SYNOPSIS 41.Nm 42.Op Fl cmnps 43.Op Fl d Ar chars 44.Op Fl l Ar num 45.Op Fl t Ar num 46.Op Ar goal Oo Ar maximum Oc | Fl Ns Ar width | Fl w Ar width 47.Op Ar 48.Sh DESCRIPTION 49The 50.Nm 51utility is a simple text formatter which reads the concatenation of input 52files (or standard input if none are given) and produces on standard 53output a version of its input with lines as close to the 54.Ar goal 55length 56as possible without exceeding the 57.Ar maximum . 58The 59.Ar goal 60length defaults 61to 65 and the 62.Ar maximum 63to 10 more than the 64.Ar goal 65length. 66Alternatively, a single 67.Ar width 68parameter can be specified either by prepending a hyphen to it or by using 69.Fl w . 70For example, 71.Dq Li fmt -w 72 , 72.Dq Li fmt -72 , 73and 74.Dq Li fmt 72 72 75all produce identical output. 76The spacing at the beginning of the input lines is preserved in the output, 77as are blank lines and interword spacing. 78Lines are joined or split only at white space; that is, words are never 79joined or hyphenated. 80.Pp 81The options are as follows: 82.Bl -tag -width indent 83.It Fl c 84Center the text, line by line. 85In this case, most of the other 86options are ignored; no splitting or joining of lines is done. 87.It Fl m 88Try to format mail header lines contained in the input sensibly. 89.It Fl n 90Format lines beginning with a 91.Ql \&. 92(dot) character. 93Normally, 94.Nm 95does not fill these lines, for compatibility with 96.Xr nroff 1 . 97.It Fl p 98Allow indented paragraphs. 99Without the 100.Fl p 101flag, any change in the amount of whitespace at the start of a line 102results in a new paragraph being begun. 103.It Fl s 104Collapse whitespace inside lines, so that multiple whitespace 105characters are turned into a single space. 106(Or, at the end of a 107sentence, a double space.) 108.It Fl d Ar chars 109Treat the 110.Ar chars 111(and no others) as sentence-ending characters. 112By default the 113sentence-ending characters are full stop 114.Pq Ql \&. , 115question mark 116.Pq Ql \&? 117and exclamation mark 118.Pq Ql \&! . 119Remember that some characters may need to be 120escaped to protect them from your shell. 121.It Fl l Ar number 122Replace multiple spaces with tabs at the start of each output 123line, if possible. 124Each 125.Ar number 126spaces will be replaced with one tab. 127The default is 8. 128If 129.Ar number 130is 0, spaces are preserved. 131.It Fl t Ar number 132Assume that the input files' tabs assume 133.Ar number 134spaces per tab stop. 135The default is 8. 136.El 137.Pp 138The 139.Nm 140utility 141is meant to format mail messages prior to sending, but may also be useful 142for other simple tasks. 143For instance, 144within visual mode of the 145.Xr ex 1 146editor (e.g., 147.Xr vi 1 ) 148the command 149.Pp 150.Dl \&!}fmt 151.Pp 152will reformat a paragraph, 153evening the lines. 154.Sh SEE ALSO 155.Xr mail 1 , 156.Xr nroff 1 157.Sh HISTORY 158The 159.Nm 160command appeared in 161.Bx 3 . 162.Pp 163The version described herein is a complete rewrite and appeared in 164.Fx 4.4 . 165.Sh AUTHORS 166.An Kurt Shoens 167.An Liz Allen 168(added 169.Ar goal 170length concept) 171.An Gareth McCaughan 172.Sh BUGS 173The program was designed to be simple and fast \- for more complex 174operations, the standard text processors are likely to be more appropriate. 175.Pp 176When the first line of an indented paragraph is very long (more than 177about twice the goal length), the indentation in the output can be 178wrong. 179.Pp 180The 181.Nm 182utility is not infallible in guessing what lines are mail headers and what 183lines are not. 184