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: head/usr.bin/fmt/fmt.1 216370 2010-12-11 08:32:16Z joel $ 30.\" 31.\" Modified by Gareth McCaughan to describe the new version of `fmt' 32.\" rather than the old one. 33.Dd January 12, 2016 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. 92Normally, 93.Nm 94does not fill these lines, for compatibility with 95.Xr nroff 1 . 96.It Fl p 97Allow indented paragraphs. 98Without the 99.Fl p 100flag, any change in the amount of whitespace at the start of a line 101results in a new paragraph being begun. 102.It Fl s 103Collapse whitespace inside lines, so that multiple whitespace 104characters are turned into a single space. 105(Or, at the end of a 106sentence, a double space.) 107.It Fl d Ar chars 108Treat the 109.Ar chars 110(and no others) as sentence-ending characters. 111By default the 112sentence-ending characters are full stop 113.Pq Ql \&. , 114question mark 115.Pq Ql \&? 116and exclamation mark 117.Pq Ql \&! . 118Remember that some characters may need to be 119escaped to protect them from your shell. 120.It Fl l Ar number 121Replace multiple spaces with tabs at the start of each output 122line, if possible. 123Each 124.Ar number 125spaces will be replaced with one tab. 126The default is 8. 127If 128.Ar number 129is 0, spaces are preserved. 130.It Fl t Ar number 131Assume that the input files' tabs assume 132.Ar number 133spaces per tab stop. 134The default is 8. 135.El 136.Pp 137The 138.Nm 139utility 140is meant to format mail messages prior to sending, but may also be useful 141for other simple tasks. 142For instance, 143within visual mode of the 144.Xr ex 1 145editor (e.g., 146.Xr vi 1 ) 147the command 148.Pp 149.Dl \&!}fmt 150.Pp 151will reformat a paragraph, 152evening the lines. 153.Sh ENVIRONMENT 154The 155.Ev LANG , LC_ALL 156and 157.Ev LC_CTYPE 158environment variables affect the execution of 159.Nm 160as described in 161.Xr environ 7 . 162.Sh SEE ALSO 163.Xr fold 1 , 164.Xr mail 1 , 165.Xr nroff 1 166.Sh HISTORY 167The 168.Nm 169command appeared in 170.Bx 3 . 171.Pp 172The version described herein is a complete rewrite and appeared in 173.Fx 4.4 . 174.Sh AUTHORS 175.An Kurt Shoens 176.An Liz Allen 177(added 178.Ar goal 179length concept) 180.An Gareth McCaughan 181.Sh BUGS 182The program was designed to be simple and fast \- for more complex 183operations, the standard text processors are likely to be more appropriate. 184.Pp 185When the first line of an indented paragraph is very long (more than 186about twice the goal length), the indentation in the output can be 187wrong. 188.Pp 189The 190.Nm 191utility is not infallible in guessing what lines are mail headers and what 192lines are not. 193