Re: [aclug-L] How to wrap lines in a file

[Sanjay Dhar <sxdhar@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 17 Jun 1999, Jeff wrote:

> > Is there a common filter that will wrap long lines in a text
> > file,  producing a file with shorter lines, but with the fragment
> > from the right on the next line?  


 You could also use the "fold" command if you wish.
  fold <filename> | lpr 

  Do a "man fold" for additional details 



> Do you want the fragment to be _joined_ with the next line, or to be on a
> line by itself?
> 
> ie:
> 
> short part short part short part -- long part long part
> second line second line.
> 
> turns into:
> 
> short part short part short part --
> long part long part
> second line second line
> 
> or
> 
> short part short part short part --
> long part long part second line second line.
> 
> ?
> 
> The first option is easy enough:
> while (<>) {
>   if (70 < length $_) { substr($_, 70, 0) = "\n" }
>   print;
> }
> 
> More tricky if you want to break at a space (but what if there isn't a
> space?)
> 
> while (<>) {
>   if (70 < length $) {
>     $i = index $_, " ", 70;
>     if ($i > 0) { 
>       substr($_, $i, 0) = "\n" } 
>     else { warn "Couldn't break line\n"; }
>   }
>   print;
> }
> 
> Trickier if you want the 2nd case above; what if the new second line ends
> up longer than WRAP_LENGTH?
> 
> Or, if it's short, you can load it up in pico and lean on control-j.
> But no, I don't know of any filters off-hand that do that.
> 
--
Sanjay