Reformatting Text Using Pattern Matching
By Julius C. Duque, April 01, 2004
Whenever I write documents, I spend a considerable amount of time just reformatting lines of text so that they fit within a 70-character-wide column. I do this because I don't like reading long lines that wrap across the screen.
April, 2004: Reformatting Text Using Pattern Matching
1 ./pretty --width=64 --both --newline --indent=4 gettysburg.txt
2 ./pretty -w=64 -b -n -i=4 gettysburg.txt
3 ./pretty -w 64 -b -n -i 4 gettysburg.txt
4 cat gettysburg.txt | ./pretty --width=64 --both --newline -i=4
1 Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on
2 this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and
3 dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
4
5 Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether
6 that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can
7 long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We
8 have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final
9 resting place for those who here gave their lives that that
10 nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we
11 should do this.
Example 5: Indented, left- and right-justified output.
