Any tool to insert a newline each X characters in a file?

neoAKiRAz · 05-08-2007, 06:18 PM

Hi! I'd like to know if there's any command between the linux tools (awk, sed, cat...) that lets me insert a newline each an specified amount of characters from a text in a pipe.
Or another way to say it, something that worked like cat but outputing in a column X characters wide.
Any idea?
Thx!

crabboy · 05-08-2007, 08:22 PM

How about a short example.

neoAKiRAz · 05-08-2007, 11:18 PM

At first I needed something that if called with argument 8, would print "something that if called with argument" as:

Code:

somethin
g that i
f called
 with ar
gument

But then I realized that I wanted it not to cut the words, and that was much more difficult, so I don't think there's a tool able to do that. Or maybe there is, I was making a widget for SuperKaramba, and ended up implementing the behavior I wanted in python code, so I don't need it now.

However, is there is a way to do this, I'm still curious...

bigearsbilly · 05-09-2007, 02:49 AM

there most certainly is my friend,

man fmt

neoAKiRAz · 05-09-2007, 06:00 PM

Great! That's just what I spent like half an hour implementing in Python :'(
I noticed that in the formatting of the manuals in Linux, a "justified" alignment is used. In fmt man doesn't seem to appear that formatting as an option. Is there any way to do that? That would definitely beat my python function... :P

makyo · 05-09-2007, 07:15 PM

Hi.

Quote:

Originally Posted by neoAKiRAz

I noticed that in the formatting of the manuals in Linux, a "justified" alignment is used. In fmt man doesn't seem to appear that formatting as an option. Is there any way to do that?

As it turns out, I was just looking at formatting, so here is a quick script that shows justification:

Code:

#!/bin/sh

# @(#) s1       Demonstrate text justification with roff, very crude sample.

##
# See man 7 groff for many details on the formatting directives.

NROFF=/usr/bin/nroff

cat >data1 <<EOF
Now is the
time for all good
people to come to
the aid of their country.
-- a most common quote that can be found almost anywhere.
EOF

justify() {
local FILE=$1
local J=$2
local W=$3
$NROFF <<-EOF
        .ad $J
        .ll $W
        .so $FILE
EOF
}

echo ; echo Left
justify data1 l 25 | sed '/^$/d'

echo ; echo Right
justify data1 r 50 | sed '/^$/d'

echo ; echo Both
justify data1 b 35 | sed '/^$/d'

echo ; echo Center
justify data1 c 35 | sed '/^$/d'

exit 0

Producing:

Code:

% ./s1

Left
Now is the time for all
good people to come to
the aid of their country.
-- a most common quote
that can be found almost
anywhere.

Right
Now is the time for all good people to come to the
aid of their country.  -- a most common quote that
                     can be found almost anywhere.

Both
Now is the time for all good people
to come to the aid of  their  coun-
try.   --  a most common quote that
can be found almost anywhere.

Center
Now is the time for all good people
 to come to the aid of their coun-
 try.  -- a most common quote that
   can be found almost anywhere

There are lots of knobs to [gnt]roff, and other folks may have some simpler ideas.

I have heard it said that "ragged right" is best for reading ... cheers, makyo

( edit 1: addition )