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: src/usr.bin/fmt/fmt.1,v 1.7.2.3 2002/06/21 15:26:55 charnier Exp $ 34.\" $DragonFly: src/usr.bin/fmt/fmt.1,v 1.2 2003/06/17 04:29:26 dillon Exp $ 35.\" 36.\" Modified by Gareth McCaughan to describe the new version of `fmt' 37.\" rather than the old one. 38.Dd June 25, 2000 39.Dt FMT 1 40.Os 41.Sh NAME 42.Nm fmt 43.Nd simple text formatter 44.Sh SYNOPSIS 45.Nm fmt 46.Op Fl cmnps 47.Op Fl d Ar chars 48.Op Fl l Ar num 49.Op Fl t Ar num 50.Op Ar goal Oo Ar maximum Oc | Fl Ns Ar width | Fl w Ar width 51.Op Ar 52.Sh DESCRIPTION 53The 54.Nm 55utility is a simple text formatter which reads the concatenation of input 56files (or standard input if none are given) and produces on standard 57output a version of its input with lines as close to the 58.Ar goal 59length 60as possible without exceeding the 61.Ar maximum . 62The 63.Ar goal 64length defaults 65to 65 and the 66.Ar maximum 67to 10 more than the 68.Ar goal 69length. 70Alternatively, a single 71.Ar width 72parameter can be specified either by prepending a hyphen to it or by using 73.Fl w . 74For example, 75.Dq Li fmt -w 72 , 76.Dq Li fmt -72 , 77and 78.Dq Li fmt 72 72 79all produce identical output. 80The spacing at the beginning of the input lines is preserved in the output, 81as are blank lines and interword spacing. 82Lines are joined or split only at white space; that is, words are never 83joined or hyphenated. 84.Pp 85The options are as follows: 86.Bl -tag -width indent 87.It Fl c 88Center the text, line by line. 89In this case, most of the other 90options are ignored; no splitting or joining of lines is done. 91.It Fl m 92Try to format mail header lines contained in the input sensibly. 93.It Fl n 94Format lines beginning with a 95.Ql \&. 96(dot) character. 97Normally, 98.Nm 99does not fill these lines, for compatibility with 100.Xr nroff 1 . 101.It Fl p 102Allow indented paragraphs. 103Without the 104.Fl p 105flag, any change in the amount of whitespace at the start of a line 106results in a new paragraph being begun. 107.It Fl s 108Collapse whitespace inside lines, so that multiple whitespace 109characters are turned into a single space. 110(Or, at the end of a 111sentence, a double space.) 112.It Fl d Ar chars 113Treat the 114.Ar chars 115(and no others) as sentence-ending characters. 116By default the 117sentence-ending characters are full stop 118.Pq Ql \&. , 119question mark 120.Pq Ql \&? 121and exclamation mark 122.Pq Ql \&! . 123Remember that some characters may need to be 124escaped to protect them from your shell. 125.It Fl l Ar number 126Replace multiple spaces with tabs at the start of each output 127line, if possible. 128Each 129.Ar number 130spaces will be replaced with one tab. 131The default is 8. 132If 133.Ar number 134is 0, spaces are preserved. 135.It Fl t Ar number 136Assume that the input files' tabs assume 137.Ar number 138spaces per tab stop. 139The default is 8. 140.El 141.Pp 142The 143.Nm 144utility 145is meant to format mail messages prior to sending, but may also be useful 146for other simple tasks. 147For instance, 148within visual mode of the 149.Xr ex 1 150editor (e.g., 151.Xr vi 1 ) 152the command 153.Pp 154.Dl \&!}fmt 155.Pp 156will reformat a paragraph, 157evening the lines. 158.Sh SEE ALSO 159.Xr mail 1 , 160.Xr nroff 1 161.Sh HISTORY 162The 163.Nm 164command appeared in 165.Bx 3 . 166.Pp 167The version described herein is a complete rewrite and appeared in 168.Fx 4.4 . 169.Sh AUTHORS 170.An Kurt Shoens 171.An Liz Allen 172(added 173.Ar goal 174length concept) 175.An Gareth McCaughan 176.Sh BUGS 177The program was designed to be simple and fast \- for more complex 178operations, the standard text processors are likely to be more appropriate. 179.Pp 180When the first line of an indented paragraph is very long (more than 181about twice the goal length), the indentation in the output can be 182wrong. 183.Pp 184The 185.Nm 186utility is not infallible in guessing what lines are mail headers and what 187lines are not. 188