Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!mimsy!umd5!brl-adm!adm!PAAAAAR%CALSTATE.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.EDU
From: PAAAAAR%CALSTATE.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: awk or sed question (break/fold)
Message-ID: <8208@brl-adm.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 7-Jul-87 22:38:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-adm.8208
Posted: Tue Jul  7 22:38:58 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 10-Jul-87 07:14:08 EDT
Sender: news@brl-adm.ARPA
Lines: 56


Art Werschulz 
wrote asking for a way to 'word wrap' text.

About 2 months ago I needed to do  something  similar  when  preparing
handouts etc for a class. I designed, coded, documented, and ported  a
program 'br.c' as an example for the class.

It is more useful than I expected. In BSD Mail I  use  '~br  -70'  to
quickly format messages. In vi you can ignore layout when editting and
then reformat a paragraph with '!{ br'. The speed is magical.  Another
use is for multicolumn printing of a list:
'!20! sortcat -nbr 20pr -3 -w70 -o10'


I am now working on joining up  lines  that  have  been  word-wrapped.
Given 'jn' (join) and 'br' I will have a kind of poor  person's  nroff
by
  'jn oldbr newpr whatever'
Has any one got a speedy program to unwrap word-wrapped text?


I won't post 'br.c', 'br.1', etc as  they  are  longer  than  previous
examples. If any one wants source, manual pages,  and/or  full  design
documentation - contact me directly and I'll send the  stuff  back  by
email(inshallah). Here are a list of features/bugs:

1.  'br  width'   reads   standard   input   and   produces   standard
output(only).

2. No output line is longer than w characters.

3. Whole groups of whitespace characters are replaced by a  newline(CR
in ASCII).

4. It interprets tabs as 6 characters wide.

5. 'br' treats nonprinting characters as having zero width.  Backspace
causes problems.

6. Words that are longer than 'w' are hyphenated before the break.

7. 'br -width' and 'br width' do the same thing.

8. The default width is 76.


Dick Botting, CSU San Ber'do
5500, State University Pkwy, San Bernardino, CA 92407
714-887-7368(voice), 714-887-7365(modem - login as guest)
paaaar@calstate.bitnet
paaaaar@ccs.csussc.edu
paaaaar%calstate.bitnet@wiscvm.wisc.edu


Disclaimer - I am only an egg.