newform(1)
newform --
change the format of a text file
Synopsis
newform [-s] [-itabspec] [-otabspec] [-bn] [-en] [-pn] [-an] [-f] [-cchar] [-ln] [files]
Description
newform reads lines from the named
files,
or the standard input if no input file is named,
and reproduces the lines on the standard output.
Lines are reformatted in accordance with
command line options in effect.
newform processes supplementary code set characters
according to the locale specified in the LC_CTYPE
environment variable (see LANG on
environ(5)),
except as noted under the -c option below.
Except for
-s,
command line options may appear in any order,
may be repeated, and
may be intermingled with the optional
files.
Command line options are processed in
the order specified.
This means that option sequences like
-e15 -l60
will yield results different from
-l60 -e15.
Options are applied to all
files
on the command line.
References to characters below should be interpreted as
bytes in multibyte character environments.
-s-
Shears off leading characters on each line up to the first tab and
places up to 8 of the sheared characters at the end of the line.
If more than 8 characters (not counting the first tab) are sheared,
the eighth character is replaced by a
and any characters to the right of it are discarded.
The first tab is always discarded.
An error message and program exit will occur if this option
is used on a file without a tab on each line.
The characters sheared off are saved internally until all other
options specified are applied to that line.
The characters are then added at the end of the processed line.
For example, to convert a file with leading digits,
one or more tabs, and text on each line, to a file beginning with the
text, all tabs after the first expanded to spaces,
padded with spaces out to column 72 (or truncated to column 72),
and the leading digits placed starting at column 73, the command would be:
newform -s -i -l -a -e file-name
-itabspec-
Input tab specification:
expands tabs to spaces, according to
the tab specifications given.
tabspec accepts four types of tab specifications: canned, repetitive,
arbitrary and file.
-n represents the
repetitive tab specification.
This format can be used to replace each tab
in a file with n spaces.
For example,
newform -i-4 file-name
replaces tabs with 4 spaces.
For more information about the tabspec formats see
tabs(1).
In addition,
tabspec
may be
--,
in which
newform
assumes that the
tab specification is to be
found in the first line read from the
standard input (see
fspec(4)).
If no
tabspec
is given,
tabspec
defaults to
-8.
A
tabspec
of
-0
expects no tabs; if any are found, they are treated as
-1.
-otabspec-
Output tab specification:
replaces spaces by tabs, according to the tab specifications given.
The tab specifications are the
same as for
-itabspec.
If no
tabspec
is given,
tabspec
defaults to
-8.
A
tabspec
of
-0
means that no spaces will be converted to tabs on output.
-bn-
Truncate
n
characters from the beginning of the line
when the line length is greater than the effective line length
(see
-ln).
Default is to truncate
the number of characters necessary
to obtain the effective line length.
The default value is used when
-b
with no
n
is used.
This option can be used to delete the sequence numbers from a
COBOL program as follows:
newform -l1 -b7 file-name
-en-
Same as
-bn
except that characters are truncated
from the end of the line.
-pn-
Prefix
n
characters (see
-ck)
to the beginning of a
line when the line length is less than the effective
line length.
Default is to prefix the number of characters necessary
to obtain the effective line length.
-an-
Same as
-pn
except characters are
appended to the end of a line.
-f-
Write the tab specification format
line on the standard output before
any other lines are output.
The tab specification format line which is printed
will correspond to the format specified
in the
last
-o
option.
If no
-o
option is specified, the line which is printed will
contain the default specification of
-8.
-ck-
Change the prefix/append character to
k.
Default character for
k
is a space.
k must be a single-byte character.
-ln-
Set the effective line length to
n
characters.
If
n
is not entered,
-l
defaults to 72.
The default line length without the
-l
option is 80 characters.
Note that tabs and backspaces are considered to be one character
(use
-i
to expand tabs to spaces).
The
-l1
must be used to set the effective line length shorter than any existing
line in the file so that the
-b
option is activated.
Diagnostics
All diagnostics are fatal.
UX:newform:ERROR:usage: ...
-
newform
was called with a bad option.
UX:newform:ERROR:not -s format
-
There was no tab on one line.
UX:newform:ERROR:can't open file
-
Self-explanatory.
UX:newform:ERROR:internal line too long
-
A line exceeds 512 characters
after being expanded in the internal work buffer.
UX:newform:ERROR:tabspec in error
-
A tab specification is incorrectly formatted,
or specified tab stops are not ascending.
UX:newform:ERROR:tabspec indirection illegal
-
A
tabspec
read from a file (or
standard input) may not contain a
tabspec
referencing another
file (or standard input).
0-
normal execution
1-
for any error
References
csplit(1),
fspec(4),
tabs(1)
Notices
newform
normally only keeps track of physical characters;
however,
for the
-i
and
-o
options,
newform
will keep track of backspaces in order
to line up tabs in the appropriate logical columns.
newform
will not prompt the user if a
tabspec
is to be read from the
standard input (by use of
-i--
or
-o--).
If the
-f
option is used,
and the last
-o
option specified was
-o--,
and was preceded by either a
-o--
or a
-i--,
the tab specification format line
will be incorrect.
© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
UnixWare 7 Release 7.1.4 - 25 April 2004