fmt.1 (2010 09)

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fmt(1) fmt(1)
NAME
fmt - format text
SYNOPSIS
fmt [-cs][-w
width][file...]
DESCRIPTION
The
fmt command is a simple text formatter that fills and joins lines to produce output lines of (up to)
the number of characters specified in the
-w width option. The default width is 72. fmt concatenates
the
file arguments. If none are given, fmt
formats text from the standard input.
Blank lines are preserved in the output, as is the spacing between words.
fmt does not fill lines begin-
ning with a period (
.), for compatibility with
nroff. Nor does it fill lines starting with
From:.
Indentation is preserved in the output and input lines with differing indentation are not joined (unless
-c
is used).
fmt can also be used as an in-line text filter for
vi; the vi command:
!}fmt
reformats the text between the cursor location and the end of the paragraph.
Options
fmt recognizes the following options:
-c Crown margin mode. Preserve the indentation of the first two lines within a paragraph and
align the left margin of each subsequent line with that of the second line. This is useful for
tagged paragraphs.
-s Split lines only. Do not join short lines to form longer ones. This prevents sample lines of
code, and other such formatted text, from being unduly combined.
-w Fill output lines to up to width columns.
WARNINGS
The
-w width option is acceptable for BSD compatibility, but it may go away in future releases.
SEE ALSO
nroff(1), vi(1).
HP-UX 11i Version 3: September 2010 − 1 − Hewlett-Packard Company 1