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fold(1) General Commands Manual fold(1) NAME fold - Breaks or wraps lines in a file SYNOPSIS fold [-bs] [-w width|-width] [file...] The fold command wraps lines in the specified files. If a file is not specified, standard input is the default. All lines are wrapped to meet the maximum width specified. STANDARDS Interfaces documented on this reference page conform to industry stan- dards as follows: fold: XPG4, XPG4-UNIX Refer to the standards(5) reference page for more information about in- dustry standards and associated tags. OPTIONS Specifies that width be counted in bytes rather than in column posi- tions. Using the -b option does not limit lines to LINE_MAX bytes. Breaks (or wraps) a line if a segment of the line contains a blank character in the first width column position (or bytes). This enables the line to meet width constraints. If a blank character is not in the correct width column position, the -s option has no affect on that in- put line. Specifies the maximum width to use when lines are wrapped in column positions (or bytes if the -b option is specified). Either -w width or -width is acceptable input where width is the number of column positions (or bytes). The default value is 80. DESCRIPTION The fold command is a filter that wraps lines from the specified input files or standard input to a maximum of width (or bytes, if the -b op- tion is specified). The fold command wraps lines by inserting a new- line character into the output so that each output line is the maximum column positions or bytes specified. A line cannot be broken in the middle of a character. The fold command is often used to send text files to line printers that truncate, rather than wrap, lines wider than the printer is able to print (usually 80 or 132 column positions). If the <backspace>, <tab>, or <carriage return> characters are encoun- tered in the input, and the -b option is not specified, these charac- ters are treated specially: The current count of line width is decre- mented by one, although the count never becomes negative. The fold command does not insert a newline character immediately before or after any backspace character. Each tab character encountered advances the column position pointer to the position of the next tab stop. Tab stops are at each column position number, such that number modulo 8 equals 1. The current count of the line width is set to zero (0). The fold command does not insert a newline immediately before or after any carriage return. [DIGITAL] The fold command possibly affects underlining in a file. EXIT STATUS The fold command returns the following values: All input files were successfully processed. [DIGITAL] A usage error occurred. [DIGI- TAL] An input file cannot be opened. The fold command continues pro- cessing the other input files specified on the command line. EXAMPLES The fold command can be used to prepare files to be joined side-by-side with the paste command. For example, the contents of two files, az and AZ follows: aaaa bbbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr ssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz AAAA BBBB CCCC DDDD EEEE FFFF GGGG HHHH IIII JJJJ KKKK LLLL MMMM NNNN OOOO PPPP QQQQ RRRR SSSS TTTT UUUU VVVV WWWW XXXX YYYY ZZZZ To display the az and AZ files side-by-side, use the following command line: fold -w 32 az > az2; fold -w 32 AZ > AZ2; paste -d" " az2 AZ2 Executing the previous command line results in the following output: aaaa bbbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gg AAAA BBBB CCCC DDDD EEEE FFFF GG gg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm GG HHHH IIII JJJJ KKKK LLLL MMMM nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr ssss tt NNNN OOOO PPPP QQQQ RRRR SSSS TT tt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz TT UUUU VVVV WWWW XXXX YYYY ZZZZ ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES The following environment variables affect the execution of fold: Pro- vides a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. If LANG is unset or null, the corresponding value from the default locale is used. If any of the internationalization vari- ables contain an invalid setting, the utility behaves as if none of the variables had been defined. If set to a non-empty string value, over- rides the values of all the other internationalization variables. De- termines the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to multi- byte characters in arguments) and for the determination of the width in column positions each character would occupy on a constant-width font output device.. Determines the locale for the format and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error. Determines the location of message catalogues for the processing of LC_MESSAGES. SEE ALSO Commands: cut(1), expand(1), paste(1) Standards: standards(5) fold(1)