fold(1)

fold(1)

NAME

fold - fold long lines for ®nite width output device

SYNOPSIS

fold [-b] [-s] [-wwidth ] [ ®le ... ]

Obsolete form:

fold [-s] [-width] [ ®le ... ]

DESCRIPTION

The fold command is a ®lter that folds the contents of the speci®ed ®les, breaking the lines to have a maximum of width column positions (or bytes, if the -boption is speci®ed). The fold command breaks lines by inserting a newline character so that each output line is the maximum width possible that does not exceed the speci®ed number of column positions (or bytes). A line cannot be broken in the middle of a char- acter. If no ®les are speci®ed or if a ®le name of - is speci®ed, the standard input is used.

The fold command is often used to send text ®les to line printers that truncate, rather than fold, lines wider than the printer is able to print.

If the backspace, tab, or carriage-return characters are encountered in the input, and the -boption is not speci®ed, they are treated specially as follows:

Backspace

The current count of line width is decremented by one, although the count never

 

becomes negative. Thus, the character sequence character-backspace-character

 

counts as using one column position, assuming both characters each occupy a single

 

column position. fold does not insert a newline character immediately before or

 

after any backspace character.

Tab

Each tab character encountered advances the column position pointer to the next

 

tab stop. Tab stops are set 8 columns apart at column positions 1, 9, 17, 25, 33, etc.

Carriage-return The current count of line width is set to zero. fold does not insert a newline character immediately before or after any carriage-return character.

Note that fold may affect any underlining that is present.

Options

The fold command recognizes the following options and command-line arguments:

-b

Count width in bytes rather than in column positions.

-s

Break the line on the last blank character found before the speci®ed number of

 

column positions (or bytes). If none are found, break the line at the speci®ed line

 

length.

-wwidth

Specify the maximum line length, in column positions (or bytes if -bis speci®ed).

-width

The default value is 80. width should be a multiple of 8 if tabs are present, or the

 

tabs should be expanded using expand before processing by fold (see expand(1)).

 

The -widthoption is obsolescent and may be removed in a future release.

EXTERNAL INFLUENCES

Environment Variables

LC_CTYPE determines the interpretation of text as single- and/or multi-byte characters.

LC_MESSAGES determines the language in which messages are displayed.

If LC_CTYPE or LC_MESSAGES is not speci®ed in the environment or is set to the empty string, the value of LANG is used as a default for each unspeci®ed or empty variable. If LANG is not speci®ed or is set to the empty string, a default of "C" (see lang(5)) is used instead of LANG.

If any internationalization variable contains an invalid setting, fold behaves as if all internationalization variables are set to "C". See environ(5).

International Code Set Support

Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported.

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HP-UX Release 11i: December 2000

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