fold ( 1 ) USER COMMANDSfold ( 1 )

NAME

fold - fold lines

SYNOPSIS

fold [ options ] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION

fold is a filter that folds lines from its input, breaking the lines to have a maximum of width column positions (or bytes if the -b option is specified). Lines are broken by the insertion of a newline character such that each output line is the maximum width possible that does not exceed the specified number of column positions, (or bytes). A line will not be broken in the middle of a character.

Unless the -b option is specified, the following will be treated specially:
carriage-return
The current count of line width will be set to zero. fold will not insert a newline immediately before or after a carriage-return.
backspace
If positive, the current count of line width will be decremented by one. fold will not insert a newline immediately before or after a backspace.
tab
Each tab character encountered will advance the column position to the next tab stop. Tab stops are at each column position n , where n modulo 8 equals 1.

If no file is given, or if the file is -, fold reads from standard input. The start of the file is defined as the current offset.

OPTIONS

-b, --bytes
Count bytes rather than columns so that each carriage-return, backspace, and tab counts as 1.
-c, --continue=text
Emit text at line splits. The default value is '\n'.
-d, --delimiter=delim
Break at delim boundaries.
-s, --spaces
Break at word boundaries. If the line contains any blanks, (spaces or tabs), within the first width column positions or bytes, the line is broken after the last blank meeting the width constraint.
-w, --width=width
Use a maximum line length of width columns instead of the default. The default value is 80.

EXIT STATUS

0
All files processed successfully.
>0
An error occurred.

SEE ALSO

paste(1)

IMPLEMENTATION

version
fold (AT&T Research) 2004-11-18
author
Glenn Fowler <gsf@research.att.com>
author
David Korn <dgk@research.att.com>
copyright
Copyright © 1992-2008 AT&T Intellectual Property
license
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/cpl1.0.txt