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NFMT(1) UNIX Programmer's Manual NFMT(1)
NAME
nfmt - simple optimal text formatter
SYNOPSIS
nfmt [ -cs ] [ -width ] [ -p prefix ] [ inputfile... ]
DESCRIPTION
nfmt is a simple text formatter, which is very similar to the
BSD program fmt(1). However nfmt uses a best-fit line breaking
algorithm, by a simple version of "Breaking Paragraphs into Lines",
Donald E. Knuth and Michael F. Plass, "Software--Practice and
Experience" 11 (1981) 1119-1184.
nfmt (just like fmt ) fills and joins lines to produce output lines
of (up to) the number of characters specified in the -width option.
The default width is 75. nfmt concatenates the inputfiles listed
as arguments. If none are given, nfmt formats text from the
standard input.
Blank lines are preserved in the output, as is the spacing between
words. Tabs are expanded on input and re-introduced on output
(unlike fmt?). Indentation is preserved in the output, and input
lines with differing indentation are not joined (unless -c is used).
nfmt can also be used as an in-line text filter for vi(1); the
vi command:
!}nfmt
reformats the text between the cursor location and the end of
the paragraph.
nfmt prefers breaking lines at the end of a sentence, and tries to
avoid line breaks after the first word of a sentence or before the
last word of a sentence. works based on the following definitions:
A sentence break defined as either the end of a paragraph or a word
ending in [.?!], possibly followed by ) or ], followed by a word
beginning with a capital.
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. The indentation of the first
line of a paragraph must be different from the indentation of
the second. Subsequent lines must have the same indentation
as the second line.
-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.
-width
Fill output lines to up to width columns (default 75). nfmt
prefers to make lines about 7% shorter, to give it room to
balance line lengths.
-p prefix
Only lines beginning with the prefix (possibly preceded by
white space) are re-arranged; the prefix (with any preceding
white space) is stripped for the formatting and re-attached
to each formatted output line. For example,
fmt -p ' * '
formats C comments laid out in the normal way, leaving the
code unchanged. The -p option may also be combined with the
other options.
BUGS
Very long paragraphs silently break nfmt's builtin limits. When the
available space is full, nfmt formats what it has so far, chooses a
low cost line break near the end and flushes the paragraph to there.
There is little cost in either time or quality of output.
The crown mode is incompatible with that of fmt(1).
nfmt obeys the description in fmt(1) mamual: Indentation is preserved
in the output, and input lines with differing indentation are not
joined (unless -c is used). fmt(1) does not.
SEE ALSO
fmt(1), fmt mail(1), mail(1), nroff(1), vi(1)
AUTHOR
Please send bug reports and suggestions to the author.
Ross Paterson <rap@doc.ic.ac.uk>
Local installation by Yossi Gil <yogi@cs.ubc.ca>