adjust(1)adjust(1)NAMEadjust - simple text formatter
SYNOPSIS
column] tabsize] [files]...
DESCRIPTION
The command is a simple text formatter for filling, centering, left and
right justifying, or only right justifying text paragraphs, and is
designed for interactive use. It reads the concatenation of input
files (or standard input if none are given) and produces on standard
output a formatted version of its input, with each paragraph formatted
separately. If is given as an input filename, reads standard input at
that point (use as an argument to separate from options.)
reads text from input lines as a series of words separated by space
characters, tabs, or newlines. Text lines are grouped into paragraphs
separated by blank lines. By default, text is copied directly to the
output, subject only to simple filling (see below) with a right margin
of 72, and leading spaces are converted to tabs where possible.
Options
The command recognizes the following command-line options:
Do not convert leading space characters to tabs on output;
(output contains no tabs, even if there were tabs in
input).
Center text on each line.
Lines are pre- and post-processed, but no filling is
performed.
Justify text.
After filling, insert spaces in each line as needed to
right justify it (except in the last line of each
paragraph) while keeping the justified left margin.
After filling text, adjust the indentation of each line for a
smooth right
margin (ragged left margin).
Set the right fill margin to the given column number, instead of
72.
Text is filled, and optionally right justified, so
that no output line extends beyond this column (if
possible). If is given, the current right margin of
the first line of each paragraph is used for that and
all subsequent lines in the paragraph.
By default, text is centered on column 40. With the
option sets the middle column of the centering "win‐
dow", but auto-sets the right side as before (which
then determines the center of the "window").
Set the tab size to other than the default (eight columns).
Only one of the and options is allowed in a single command line.
Details
Before doing anything else to a line of input text, first handles
backspaces, rubbing out preceding characters in the usual way. Next,
it ignores all nonprintable characters except tab. It then expands all
tabs to spaces.
For simple text filling, the first word of the first line of each para‐
graph is indented the same amount as in the input line. Each word is
then carried to the output followed by one space. "Words" ending in
terminal_character[quote][closing_character] are followed by two spa‐
ces, where terminal_character is any of or quote is a single closing
quote or double-quote character (), and close is any of or Here are
some examples:
does not place two spaces after a pair of single closing quotes follow‐
ing a terminal_character).
starts a new output line whenever adding a word (other than the first
one) to the current line would exceed the right margin.
understands indented first lines of paragraphs (such as this one) when
filling. The second and subsequent lines of each paragraph are
indented the same amount as the second line of the input paragraph if
there is a second line, else the same as the first line.
also has a rudimentary understanding of tagged paragraphs
(such as this one) when filling. If the second line of a
paragraph is indented more than the first, and the first line
has a word beginning at the same indentation as the second
line, the input column position of the tag word or words
(prior to the one matching the second line indentation) is
preserved.
Tag words are passed through without change of column position, even if
they extend beyond the right margin. The rest of the line is filled or
right justified from the position of the first nontag word.
When is given, uses an intelligent algorithm to insert spaces in output
lines where they are most needed, until the lines extend to the right
margin. First, all one space word separators are examined. One space
is added to each separator, starting with the one having the most let‐
ters between it and the preceding and following separators, until the
modified line reaches the right margin. If all one space separators
are increased to two spaces and more spaces must be inserted, the algo‐
rithm is repeated with two space separators, and so on.
Output line indentation is held to one less than the right margin. If
a single word is larger than the line size (right margin minus indenta‐
tion), that word appears on a line by itself, properly indented, and
extends beyond the right margin. However, if is used, such words are
still right justified, if possible.
If the current locale defines class names and (see iswctype(3C)), for‐
mats the text in accordance with the character classification and mar‐
gin settings (see and options).
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
Environment Variables
provides a default value for the internationalization variables that
are unset or null. If is unset or null, the default value of "C" (see
lang(5)) is used. If any of the internationalization variables con‐
tains an invalid setting, will behave as if all internationalization
variables are set to "C". See environ(5).
If set to a nonempty string value, overrides the values of all the
other internationalization variables.
determines the interpretation of text as single and/or multi-byte char‐
acters, the classification of characters as printable, and the charac‐
ters matched by character class expressions in regular expressions.
determines the locale that should be used to affect the format and con‐
tents of diagnostic messages written to standard error and informative
messages written to standard output.
determines the location of message catalogs for the processing of
International Code Set Support
Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported.
DIAGNOSTICS
complains to standard error and later returns a nonzero value if any
input file cannot be opened (it skips the file). It does the same (but
quits immediately) if the argument to or is out of range, or if the
program is improperly invoked.
Input lines longer than are silently split (before tab expansion) or
truncated (afterwards). Lines that are too wide to center begin in
column 1 (no leading spaces).
EXAMPLES
This command is useful for filtering text while in vi(1). For example,
reformats the rest of the current paragraph (from the current line
down), evening the lines.
The command:
(where denotes control characters) sets up a useful "finger macro".
Typing (Ctrl-X) reformats the entire current paragraph.
is a simple way to break text into separate words without whitespace,
except for tagged-paragraph tags.
WARNINGS
This program is designed to be simple and fast. It does not recognize
backslash to escape whitespace or other characters. It does not recog‐
nize tagged paragraphs where the tag is on a line by itself. It knows
that lines end in newline or null, and how to deal with tabs and
backspaces, but it does not do anything special with other characters
such as form feed (they are simply ignored). For complex operations,
standard text processors are likely to be more appropriate.
This program could be implemented instead as a set of independent pro‐
grams, fill, center, and justify (with the option). However, this
would be much less efficient in actual use, especially given the pro‐
gram's special knowledge of tagged paragraphs and last lines of para‐
graphs.
AUTHOR
was developed by HP.
SEE ALSOnroff(1).
adjust(1)