par(1) Par 1.50 par(1)
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NAME
par - filter for reformatting paragraphs
SYNOPSIS
par [ help ] [ version ] [ Bopset ] [ Popset ] [ Qopset ] [ h[hang] ]
[ p[prefix] ] [ r[repeat] ] [ s[suffix] ] [ T[Tab] ] [ w[width] ]
[ b[body] ] [ c[cap] ] [ d[div] ] [ E[Err] ] [ e[expel] ]
[ f[fit] ] [ g[guess] ] [ j[just] ] [ l[last] ] [ q[quote] ]
[ R[Report] ] [ t[touch] ]
DESCRIPTION
par is a filter which copies its input to its output, changing all
white characters (except newlines) to spaces, and reformatting each
paragraph. Paragraphs are separated by protected, blank, and bodiless
lines (see the TERMINOLOGY section for definitions), and optionally
delimited by indentation (see the d option in the OPTIONS section).
Each output paragraph is generated from the corresponding input
paragraph as follows:
1) An optional prefix and/or suffix is removed from each input line.
2) The remainder is divided into words (separated by spaces)3) The
words are joined into lines to make an eye-pleasing paragraph.
4) The prefixes and suffixes are reattached.
If there are suffixes, spaces are inserted before them so that they
all end in the same column.
QUICK START
par is necessarily complex. For those who wish to use it immediately
and understand it later, assign the PARINIT environment variable the
following value:
rTbgqR B=.?_A_a Q=_s>| The spaces, question mark, greater-than
sign, and vertical bar will probably have to be escaped or quoted
to prevent your shell from interpreting them. The documentation,
though precise, is unfortunately not well-written for the end-
user. Your best bet is probably to read quickly the DESCRIPTION,
TERMINOLOGY, OPTIONS, and ENVIRONMENT sections, then read
carefully the EXAMPLES section, referring back to the OPTIONS and
TERMINOLOGY sections as needed. For the "power user", a full
understanding of par will require multiple readings of the
TERMINOLOGY, OPTIONS, DETAILS, and EXAMPLES sections.
TERMINOLOGY
Miscellaneous terms:
charset syntax
A way of representing a set of characters as a string. The
set includes exactly those characters which appear in the
string, except that the underscore (_) is an escape
character. Whenever it appears, it must begin one of the
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following escape sequences:
__ = an unders_sr= a s_bc= a backslash _q)= a single
quote _Q)= a double quote _A)= all upper case
let_ar= all lower case let_0r= all decimal digits
_xhh = the character represented by the two hexadecimal
digits hh (which may be upper or lower case)
The NUL character must not appear in the string, but it may
be included in the set with the _x00 sequence.
error
A condition which causes par to abort. See the DIAGNOSTICS
section.
IP Input paragraph.
OP Output paragraph.
parameter
A symbol which may take on unsigned integral values. There
are several parameters whose values affect the behavior of
par. Parameters can be assigned values using command line
options.
Types of characters:
alphanumeric character
An upper case letter, lower case letter, or decimal digit.
body character
A member of the set of characters defined by the PARBODY
environment variable (see the ENVIRONMENT section) and/or
the B option (see the OPTIONS section).
protective character
A member of the set of characters defined by the PARPROTECT
environment variable and/or the P option.
quote character
A member of the set of characters defined by the PARQUOTE
environment variable and/or the Q option.
terminal character
A period, question mark, exclamation point, or colon.
white character
A space, formfeed, newline, carriage return, tab, or
vertical tab.
Functions:
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comprelen
Given a non-empty sequence S of lines, let c be their
longest common prefix. If the parameter body is 0, place a
divider just after the leading non-body characters in c (at
the beginning if there are none). If body is 1, place the
divider just after the last non-space non-body character in
c (at the beginning if there is none), then advance the
divider over any immediately following spaces. The
comprelen of S is the number of characters preceeding the
divider.
comsuflen
Given a non-empty sequence S of lines, let p be the
comprelen of S. Let T be the set of lines which result from
stripping the first p characters from each line in S. Let c
be the longest common suffix of the lines in T. If body is
0, place a divider just before the trailing non-body
characters in c (at the end if there are none), then advance
the divider over all but the last of any immediately
following spaces. If body is 1, place the divider just
before the first non-space non-body character, then back up
the divider over one immediately preceeding space if there
is one. The comsuflen of S is the number of characters
following the divider.
fallback prelen (suflen)
The fallback prelen (suflen) of an IP is: the comprelen
(comsuflen) of the IP, if the IP contains at least two
lines; otherwise, the comprelen (comsuflen) of the block
containing the IP, if the block contains at least two lines;
otherwise, the length of the longer of the prefixes
(suffixes) of the bodiless lines just above and below the
block, if the segment containing the block has any bodiless
lines; otherwise, 0. (See below for the definitions of
block, segment, and bodiless line.)
augmented fallback prelen
Let fp be the fallback prelen of an IP. If the IP contains
more than one line, or if quote is 0, then the augmented
fallback prelen of the IP is simply fp. Otherwise, it is fp
plus the number of quote characters immediately following
the first fp characters of the line.
quoteprefix
The quoteprefix of a line is the longest string of quote
characters appearing at the beginning of the line, after
this string has been stripped of any trailing spaces.
Types of lines:
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blank line
An empty line, or a line whose first character is not
protective and which contains only spaces.
protected line
An input line whose first character is protective.
bodiless line
A line which is order k bodiless for some k.
order k bodiless line
There is no such thing as an order 0 bodiless line. Suppose
S is a a contiguous subsequence of a segment (see below)
containing at least two lines, containing no order k-1
bodiless lines, bounded above and below by order k-1
bodiless lines and/or the beginning/end of the segment. Let
p and s be the comprelen and comsuflen of S. Any member of
S which, if stripped of its first p and last s characters,
would be blank (or, if the parameter repeat is non-zero,
would consist of the same character repeated at least repeat
times), is order k bodiless. The first p characters of the
bodiless line comprise its prefix; the last s characters
comprise its suffix. The character which repeats in the
middle is called its repeat character. If the middle is
empty, the space is taken to be its repeat character.
vacant line
A bodiless line whose repeat character is the space.
superfluous line
Only blank and vacant lines may be superfluous. If
contiguous vacant lines lie at the beginning or end of a
segment, they are all superfluous. But if they lie between
two non-vacant lines within a segment, then all are
superfluous except one-the one which contains the fewest
non-spaces. In case of a tie, the first of the tied lines
is chosen. Similarly, if contiguous blank lines lie outside
of any segments at the beginning or end of the input, they
are all superfluous. But if they lie between two segments
and/or protected lines, then all are superfluous except the
first.
Groups of lines:
segment
A contiguous sequence of input lines containing no protected
or blank lines, bounded above and below by protected lines,
blank lines, and/or the beginning/end of the input.
block
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A contiguous subsequence of a segment containing no bodiless
lines, bounded above and below by bodiless lines and/or the
beginning/end of the segment.
Types of words:
capitalized word
If the parameter cap is 0, a capitalized word is one which
contains at least one alphanumeric character, whose first
alphanumeric character is not a lower case letter. If cap
is 1, every word is considered a capitalized word. (See the
c option in the OPTIONS section.)
curious word
A word which contains a terminal character c such that there
are no alphanumeric characters in the word after c, but
there is at least one alphanumeric character in the word
before c.
OPTIONS
Any command line argument may begin with one minus sign (-) which is
ignored. Generally, more than one option may appear in a single
command line argument, but there are exceptions: The help, version,
B, P, and Q options must have whole arguments all to themselves.
help Causes all remaining arguments to be ignored. No input is
read. A usage message is printed on the output briefly
describing the options used by par.
version Causes all remaining arguments to be ignored. No input is
read. "par 1.50" is printed on the output. Of course, this
will change in future releases of Par.
Bopset op is a single character, either an equal sign (=), a plus
sign (+), or a minus sign (-), and set is a string using
charset syntax. If op is an equal sign, the set of body
characters is set to the character set defined by set. If
op is a plus/minus sign, the characters in the set defined
by set are added/removed to/from the existing set of body
characters defined by the PARBODY environment variable and
any previous B options. It is okay to add characters that
are already in the set or to remove characters that are not
in the set.
Popset Just like the B option, except that it applies to the set of
protective characters.
Qopset Just like the B option, except that it applies to the set of
quote characters. All remaining options are used to set
values of parameters. Values set by command line options
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hold for all paragraphs. Unset parameters are given default
values. Any parameters whose default values depend on the
IP (namely prefix and suffix), if left unset, are recomputed
separately for each paragraph. The approximate role of each
variable is described here. See the DETAILS section for the
rest of the story. The first six parameters, hang, prefix,
repeat, suffix, Tab, and width, may be set to any unsigned
decimal integer less than 10000.
h[hang] Mainly affects the default values of prefix and suffix.
Defaults to 0. If the h option is given without a number,
the value 1 is inferred. (See also the p and s options.)
p[prefix] The first prefix characters of each line of the OP are
copied from the first prefix characters of the corresponding
line of the IP. If there are more than hang+1 lines in the
IP, the default value is the comprelen of all the lines in
the IP except the first hang of them. Otherwise, the
default value is the augmented fallback prelen of the IP.
If the p option is given without a number, prefix is unset,
even if it had been set earlier. (See also the h and q
options.)
r[repeat] If repeat is non-zero, bodiless lines have the number of
instances of their repeat characters increased or decreased
until the length of the line is width. The exact value of
repeat affects the definition of bodiless line. Defaults to
0. If the r option is given without a number, the value 3
is inferred. (See also the w option.)
s[suffix] The last suffix characters of each line of the OP are copied
from the last suffix characters of the corresponding line of
the IP. If there are more than hang+1 lines in the IP, the
default value is the comsuflen of all the lines of the IP
except the first hang of them. Otherwise, the default value
is the fallback suflen of the IP. If the s option is given
without a number, suffix is unset, even if it had been set
earlier. (See also the h option.)
T[Tab] Tab characters in the input are expanded to spaces, assuming
tab stops every Tab columns. Must not be 0. Defaults to 1.
If the T option is given without a number, the value 8 is
inferred.
w[width] No line in the OP may contain more than width characters,
not including the trailing newlines. Defaults to 72. If
the w option is given without a number, the value 79 is
inferred. The remaining thirteen parameters, body, cap,
div, Err, expel, fit, guess, invis, just, last, quote,
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Report, and touch, may be set to either 0 or 1. If the
number is absent in the option, the value 1 is inferred.
b[body] If body is 1, prefixes may not contain any trailing body
characters, and suffixes may not contain any leading body
characters. (Actually, the situation is complicated by
space characters. See comprelen and comsuflen in the
Terminology section.) If body is 0, prefixes and suffixes
may not contain any body characters at all. Defaults to 0.
c[cap] If cap is 1, all words are considered capitalized. This
currently affects only the application of the g option.
Defaults to 0.
d[div] If div is 0, each block becomes an IP. If div is 1, each
block is subdivided into IPs as follows: Let p be the
comprelen of the block. Let a line's status be 1 if its
(p+1)st character is a space, 0 otherwise. Every line in
the block whose status is the same as the status of the
first line will begin a new paragraph. Defaults to 0.
E[Err] If Err is 1, messages to the user (caused by the help and
version options, or by errors) are sent to the error stream
instead of the output stream. Defaults to 0.
e[expel] If expel is 1, superfluous lines are withheld from the
output. Defaults to 0.
f[fit] If fit is 1 and just is 0, par tries to make the lines in
the OP as nearly the same length as possible, even if it
means making the OP narrower. Defaults to 0. (See also the
j option.)
g[guess] If guess is 1, then when par is choosing line breaks,
whenever it encounters a curious word followed by a
capitalized word, it takes one of two special actions. If
the two words are separated by a single space in the input,
they will be merged into one word with an embedded non-
breaking space. If the two words are separated by more than
one space, or by a line break, par will insure that they are
separated by two spaces, or by a line break, in the output.
Defaults to 0.
i[invis] If invis is 1, then vacant lines inserted because quote is 1
are invisible; that is, they are not output. If quote is 0,
invis has no effect. Defaults to 0. (See also the q
option.)
j[just] If just is 1, par justifies the OP, inserting spaces between
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words so that all lines in the OP have length width (except
the last, if last is 0). Defaults to 0. (See also the w,
l, and f options.)
l[last] If last is 1, par tries to make the last line of the OP
about the same length as the others. Defaults to 0.
q[quote] If quote is 1, then before each segment is scanned for
bodiless lines, par supplies vacant lines between different
quotation nesting levels as follows: For each pair of
adjacent lines in the segment, (scanned from the top down)
which have different quoteprefixes, one of two actions is
taken. If invis is 0, and either line consists entirely of
quote characters and spaces (or is empty), that line is
truncated to the longest common prefix of the two lines
(both are truncated if both qualify). Otherwise, a line
consisting of the longest common prefix of the two lines is
inserted between them. quote also affects the default value
of prefix. Defaults to 0. (See also the p and i options.)
R[Report] If Report is 1, it is considered an error for an input word
to contain more than L = (width - prefix - suffix)
characters. Otherwise, such words are chopped after each
Lth character into shorter words. Defaults to 0.
t[touch] Has no effect if suffix is 0 or just is 1. Otherwise, if
touch is 0, all lines in the OP have length width. If touch
is 1, the length of the lines is decreased until the
suffixes touch the body of the OP. Defaults to the logical
OR of fit and last. (See also the s, j, w, f, and l
options.) If an argument begins with a number, that number
is assumed to belong to a p option if it is 8 or less, and
to a w option otherwise. If the value of any parameter is
set more than once, the last value is used. When unset
parameters are assigned default values, hang and quote are
assigned before prefix, and fit and last are assigned before
touch (because of the dependencies). It is an error if
width <= prefix + suffix.
ENVIRONMENT
PARBODY Determines the initial set of body characters (which are
used for determining comprelens and comsuflens), using
charset syntax. If PARBODY is not set, the set of body
characters is initially empty.
PARINIT If set, par will read command line options from PARINIT
before it reads them from the command line. Within the
value of PARINIT, arguments are separated by white
characters.
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PARPROTECT
Determines the set of protective characters, using charset
syntax. If PARPROTECT is not set, the set of protective
characters is initially empty.
PARQUOTE Determines the set of quote characters, using charset
syntax. If PARQUOTE is not set, the set of quote characters
initially contains only the greater-than sign (>) and the
space. If a NUL character appears in the value of an
environment variable, it and the rest of the string will not
be seen by par. Note that the PARINIT variable, together
with the B, P, and Q options, renders the other environment
variables unnecessary. They are included for backward
compatibility.
DETAILS
Lines are terminated by newline characters, but the newlines are not
considered to be included in the lines. If the last character of the
input is a non-newline, a newline will be inferred immediately after
it (but if the input is empty, no newline will be inferred; the number
of input lines will be 0). Thus, the input can always be viewed as a
sequence of lines. Protected lines are copied unchanged from the
input to the output. All other input lines, as they are read, have
any NUL characters removed, and every white character (except
newlines) turned into a space. Actually, each tab character is turned
into Tab - (n % Tab) spaces, where n is the number of characters
preceeding the tab character on the line (evaluated after earlier tab
characters have been expanded). Blank lines in the input are
transformed into empty lines in the output. If repeat is 0, all
bodiless lines are vacant, and they are all simply stripped of
trailing spaces before being output. If repeat is not 0, only vacant
lines whose suffixes have length 0 are treated that way; other
bodiless lines have the number of instances of their repeat characters
increased or decreased until the length of the line is width. If
expel is 1, superfluous lines are not output. If quote and invis are
both 1, there may be invisible lines; they are not output. The input
is divided into segments, which are divided into blocks, which are
divided into IPs. The exact process depends on the values of quote
and div (see q and d in the OPTIONS section). The remainder of this
section describes the process which is applied independently to each
IP to construct the corresponding OP. After the values of the
parameters are determined (see the OPTIONS section), the first prefix
characters and the last suffix characters of each input line are
removed and remembered. It is an error for any line to contain fewer
than prefix + suffix characters. The remaining text is treated as a
sequence of characters, not lines. The text is broken into words,
which are separated by spaces. That is, a word is a maximal sub-
sequence of non-spaces. If guess is 1, some words might be merged
(see g in the OPTIONS section). The first word includes any spaces
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that preceed it on the same line. Let L = width - prefix - suffix.
If Report is 0, some words may get chopped up at this point (see R in
the OPTIONS section). The words are reassembled, preserving their
order, into lines. If just is 0, adjacent words within a line are
separated by a single space, (or sometimes two if guess is 1), and
line breaks are chosen so that the paragraph satisfies the following
properties:
1) No line contains more than L characters2) If fit is 1, the
difference between the lengths of the shortest and longest
lines is as small as possible3) The shortest line is as long
as possible, subject to properties 1 and 24) Let target be L
if fit is 0, or the length of the longest line if fit is 1.
The sum of the squares of the differences between target and
the lengths of the lines is as small as possible, subject to
properties 1, 2, and 3.
If last is 0, the last line does not count as a line for the
purposes of properties 2, 3, and 4 above. If all the words fit
on a single line, the properties as worded above don't make much
sense. In that case, no line breaks are inserted.
If just is 1, adjacent words within a line are separated by one space
(or sometimes two if guess is 1) plus zero or more extra spaces. The
value of fit is disregarded, and line breaks are chosen so that the
paragraph satisfies the following properties:
1) Every line contains exactly L characters.2) The largest
inter-word gap is as small as possible, subject to property
1. (An inter-word gap consists only of the extra spaces,
not the regular spaces.3) The sum of the squares of the
lengths of the inter-word gaps is as small as possible,
subject to properties 1 and 2.
If last is 0, the last line does not count as a line for the
purposes of property 1, and it does not require or contain any
extra spaces. Extra spaces are distributed as uniformly as
possible among the inter-word gaps in each line. In a justified
paragraph, every line must contain at least two words, but that's
not always possible to accomplish. If the paragraph cannot be
justified, it is considered an error.
If the number of lines in the resulting paragraph is less than hang,
empty lines are added at the end to bring the number of lines up to
hang. If just is 0 and touch is 1, L is changed to be the length of
the longest line. If suffix is not 0, each line is padded at the end
with spaces to bring its length up to L. To each line is prepended
prefix characters. Let n be the number of lines in the IP, let afp be
the augmented fallback prelen of the IP, and let fs be the fallback
suflen of the IP. The characters which are prepended to the ith line
are chosen as follows:
1) If i <= n, the characters are copied from the ones that were
removed from the beginning of the nth input line2) If i > n >
hang, the characters are copied from the ones that were removed
from the beginning of the last input line3) If i > n and n <=
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hang, the first min(afp,prefix) of the characters are copied from
the ones that were removed from the beginning of the last input
line, and the rest are all spaces.
Then to each line is appended suffix characters. The characters which
are appended to the ith line are chosen as follows:
1) If i <= n, the characters are copied from the ones that were
removed from the end of the nth input line2) If i > n > hang, the
characters are copied from the ones that were removed from the
end of the last input line3) If i > n and n <= hang, the first
min(fs,suffix) of the characters are copied from the ones that
were removed from the beginning of the last input line, and the
rest are all spaces.
Finally, the lines are printed to the output as the OP.
DIAGNOSTICS
If there are no errors, par returns EXIT_SUCCESS (see <stdlib.h>). If
there is an error, an error message will be printed to the output, and
par will return EXIT_FAILURE. If the error is local to a single
paragraph, the preceeding paragraphs will have been output before the
error was detected. Line numbers in error messages are local to the
IP in which the error occurred. All error messages begin with
"par error:" on a line by itself. Error messages concerning command
line or environment variable syntax are accompanied by the same usage
message that the help option produces. Of course, trying to print an
error message would be futile if an error resulted from an output
function, so par doesn't bother doing any error checking on output
functions.
EXAMPLES
The superiority of par's dynamic programming algorithm over a greedy
algorithm (such as the one used by fmt) can be seen in the following
example: Original paragraph (note that each line begins with 8
spaces):
We the people of the United States,
in order to form a more perfect union,
establish justice,
insure domestic tranquility,
provide for the common defense,
promote the general welfare,
and secure the blessing of liberty
to ourselves and our posterity,
do ordain and establish the Constitution
of the United States of America.
After a greedy algorithm with width = 39:
We the people of the United
States, in order to form a more
perfect union, establish
justice, insure domestic
tranquility, provide for the
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common defense, promote the
general welfare, and secure the
blessing of liberty to
ourselves and our posterity, do
ordain and establish the
Constitution of the United
States of America.
After "par 39":
We the people of the United
States, in order to form a
more perfect union, establish
justice, insure domestic
tranquility, provide for the
common defense, promote the
general welfare, and secure
the blessing of liberty to
ourselves and our posterity,
do ordain and establish the
Constitution of the United
States of America.
The line breaks chosen by par are clearly more eye-pleasing. par is
most useful in conjunction with the text-filtering features of an
editor, such as the ! commands of vi. You may wish to add the
following lines to your .exrc file:
" use Bourne shell for speed:
set shell=/bin/sh
"
" reformat paragraph with no arguments:
map ** {!}par^M}
"
" reformat paragraph with arguments:
map *^V {!}par
Note that the leading spaces must be removed, and that what is shown
as ^M and ^V really need to be ctrl-M and ctrl-V. Also note that the
last map command contains two spaces following the ctrl-V, plus one at
the end of the line. To reformat a simple paragraph delimited by
blank lines in vi, you can put the cursor anywhere in it and type "**"
(star star). If you need to supply arguments to par, you can type "* "
(star space) instead, then type the arguments. The rest of this
section is a series of before-and-after pictures showing some typical
uses of par. In all cases, no environment variables are set. Before:
/* We the people of the United States, */
/* in order to form a more perfect union, */
/* establish justice, */
/* insure domestic tranquility, */
/* provide for the common defense, */
/* promote the general welfare, */
/* and secure the blessing of liberty */
/* to ourselves and our posterity, */
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/* do ordain and establish the Constitution */
/* of the United States of America. */
After "par 59":
/* We the people of the United States, in */
/* order to form a more perfect union, establish */
/* justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide */
/* for the common defense, promote the general */
/* welfare, and secure the blessing of liberty */
/* to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain */
/* and establish the Constitution of the United */
/* States of America. */
Or after "par 59f":
/* We the people of the United States, */
/* in order to form a more perfect union, */
/* establish justice, insure domestic */
/* tranquility, provide for the common */
/* defense, promote the general welfare, */
/* and secure the blessing of liberty to */
/* ourselves and our posterity, do ordain */
/* and establish the Constitution of the */
/* United States of America. */
Or after "par 59l":
/* We the people of the United States, in */
/* order to form a more perfect union, establish */
/* justice, insure domestic tranquility, */
/* provide for the common defense, promote */
/* the general welfare, and secure the */
/* blessing of liberty to ourselves and our */
/* posterity, do ordain and establish the */
/* Constitution of the United States of America. */
Or after "par 59lf":
/* We the people of the United States, */
/* in order to form a more perfect union, */
/* establish justice, insure domestic */
/* tranquility, provide for the common */
/* defense, promote the general welfare, */
/* and secure the blessing of liberty */
/* to ourselves and our posterity, do */
/* ordain and establish the Constitution */
/* of the United States of America. */
Or after "par 59lft0":
/* We the people of the United States, */
/* in order to form a more perfect union, */
/* establish justice, insure domestic */
/* tranquility, provide for the common */
/* defense, promote the general welfare, */
/* and secure the blessing of liberty */
/* to ourselves and our posterity, do */
/* ordain and establish the Constitution */
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USER COMMANDS USER COMMANDS
11 February 1996
/* of the United States of America. */
Or after "par 59j":
/* We the people of the United States, in */
/* order to form a more perfect union, establish */
/* justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide */
/* for the common defense, promote the general */
/* welfare, and secure the blessing of liberty */
/* to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and */
/* establish the Constitution of the United */
/* States of America. */
Or after "par 59jl":
/* We the people of the United States, */
/* in order to form a more perfect */
/* union, establish justice, insure domestic */
/* tranquility, provide for the common defense, */
/* promote the general welfare, and secure */
/* the blessing of liberty to ourselves and */
/* our posterity, do ordain and establish the */
/* Constitution of the United States of America. */
Before:
Preamble We the people of the United States,
to the US in order to form
Constitution a more perfect union,
establish justice,
insure domestic tranquility,
provide for the common defense,
promote the general welfare,
and secure the blessing of liberty
to ourselves and our posterity,
do ordain and establish
the Constitution
of the United States of America.
After "par 52h3":
Preamble We the people of the United
to the US States, in order to form a
Constitution more perfect union, establish
justice, insure domestic
tranquility, provide for the
common defense, promote the
general welfare, and secure
the blessing of liberty to
ourselves and our posterity,
do ordain and establish the
Constitution of the United
States of America.
Before:
1 We the people of the United States,
2 in order to form a more perfect union,
3 establish justice,
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USER COMMANDS USER COMMANDS
11 February 1996
4 insure domestic tranquility,
5 provide for the common defense,
6 promote the general welfare,
7 and secure the blessing of liberty
8 to ourselves and our posterity,
9 do ordain and establish the Constitution
10 of the United States of America.
After "par 59p12l":
1 We the people of the United States, in order to
2 form a more perfect union, establish justice,
3 insure domestic tranquility, provide for the
4 common defense, promote the general welfare,
5 and secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves
6 and our posterity, do ordain and establish the
7 Constitution of the United States of America.
Before:
> > We the people
> > of the United States,
> > in order to form a more perfect union,
> > establish justice,
> > ensure domestic tranquility,
> > provide for the common defense,
>
> Promote the general welfare,
> and secure the blessing of liberty
> to ourselves and our posterity,
> do ordain and establish
> the Constitution of the United States of America.
After "par 52":
> > We the people of the United States, in
> > order to form a more perfect union,
> > establish justice, ensure domestic
> > tranquility, provide for the common
> > defense,
>
> Promote the general welfare, and secure
> the blessing of liberty to ourselves and
> our posterity, do ordain and establish
> the Constitution of the United States of
> America.
Before:
> We the people
> of the United States,
> in order to form a more perfect union,
> establish justice,
> ensure domestic tranquility,
> provide for the common defense,
> Promote the general welfare,
> and secure the blessing of liberty
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USER COMMANDS USER COMMANDS
11 February 1996
> to ourselves and our posterity,
> do ordain and establish
> the Constitution of the United States of America.
After "par 52d":
> We the people of the United States,
> in order to form a more perfect union,
> establish justice, ensure domestic
> tranquility, provide for the common
> defense,
> Promote the general welfare, and secure
> the blessing of liberty to ourselves and
> our posterity, do ordain and establish
> the Constitution of the United States of
> America.
Before:
# 1. We the people of the United States.
# 2. In order to form a more perfect union.
# 3. Establish justice, ensure domestic
# tranquility.
# 4. Provide for the common defense
# 5. Promote the general welfare.
# 6. And secure the blessing of liberty
# to ourselves and our posterity.
# 7. Do ordain and establish the Constitution.
# 8. Of the United States of America.
After "par 37p13dh":
# 1. We the people of the
# United States.
# 2. In order to form a more
# perfect union.
# 3. Establish justice,
# ensure domestic
# tranquility.
# 4. Provide for the common
# defense
# 5. Promote the general
# welfare.
# 6. And secure the blessing
# of liberty to ourselves
# and our posterity.
# 7. Do ordain and establish
# the Constitution.
# 8. Of the United States of
# America.
Before:
/*****************************************/
/* We the people of the United States, */
/* in order to form a more perfect union, */
/* establish justice, insure domestic */
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11 February 1996
/* tranquility, */
/* */
/* */
/* [ provide for the common defense, ] */
/* [ promote the general welfare, ] */
/* [ and secure the blessing of liberty ] */
/* [ to ourselves and our posterity, ] */
/* [ ] */
/* */
/* do ordain and establish the Constitution */
/* of the United States of America. */
/******************************************/
After "par 42r":
/********************************/
/* We the people of the */
/* United States, in order to */
/* form a more perfect union, */
/* establish justice, insure */
/* domestic tranquility, */
/* */
/* */
/* [ provide for the common ] */
/* [ defense, promote the ] */
/* [ general welfare, and ] */
/* [ secure the blessing of ] */
/* [ liberty to ourselves ] */
/* [ and our posterity, ] */
/* [ ] */
/* */
/* do ordain and establish the */
/* Constitution of the United */
/* States of America. */
/********************************/
Or after "par 42re":
/********************************/
/* We the people of the */
/* United States, in order to */
/* form a more perfect union, */
/* establish justice, insure */
/* domestic tranquility, */
/* */
/* [ provide for the common ] */
/* [ defense, promote the ] */
/* [ general welfare, and ] */
/* [ secure the blessing of ] */
/* [ liberty to ourselves ] */
/* [ and our posterity, ] */
/* */
/* do ordain and establish the */
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USER COMMANDS USER COMMANDS
11 February 1996
/* Constitution of the United */
/* States of America. */
/********************************/
Before:
Joe Public writes:
> Jane Doe writes:
> >
> >
> > I can't find the source for uncompress.
> Oh no, not again!!!
>
>
> Isn't there a FAQ for this?
>
>
That wasn't very helpful, Joe. Jane,
just make a link from uncompress to compress.
After "par 40q":
Joe Public writes:
> Jane Doe writes:
>
>
> > I can't find the source for
> > uncompress.
>
> Oh no, not again!!!
>
>
> Isn't there a FAQ for this?
>
That wasn't very helpful, Joe.
Jane, just make a link from
uncompress to compress.
Or after "par 40qe":
Joe Public writes:
> Jane Doe writes:
>
> > I can't find the source for
> > uncompress.
>
> Oh no, not again!!!
>
> Isn't there a FAQ for this?
That wasn't very helpful, Joe.
Jane, just make a link from
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11 February 1996
uncompress to compress.
Or after "par 40qi":
Joe Public writes:
> Jane Doe writes:
> >
> >
> > I can't find the source for
> > uncompress.
> Oh no, not again!!!
>
>
> Isn't there a FAQ for this?
>
>
That wasn't very helpful, Joe.
Jane, just make a link from
uncompress to compress.
Or after "par 40qie":
Joe Public writes:
> Jane Doe writes:
> > I can't find the source for
> > uncompress.
> Oh no, not again!!!
>
> Isn't there a FAQ for this?
That wasn't very helpful, Joe.
Jane, just make a link from
uncompress to compress.
Before:
I sure hope there's still room
in Dr. Jones' section of archaeology.
I've heard he's the bestest. [sic]
After "par 50g":
I sure hope there's still room in
Dr. Jones' section of archaeology. I've
heard he's the bestest. [sic]
Or after "par 50gc":
I sure hope there's still room in
Dr. Jones' section of archaeology. I've
heard he's the bestest. [sic]
Before:
John writes:
: Mary writes:
: + Anastasia writes:
: + > Hi all!
: + Hi Ana!
: Hi Ana & Mary!
Please unsubscribe me from alt.hello.
After "par Q+:+ q":
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USER COMMANDS USER COMMANDS
11 February 1996
John writes:
: Mary writes:
:
: + Anastasia writes:
: +
: + > Hi all!
: +
: + Hi Ana!
:
: Hi Ana & Mary!
Please unsubscribe me from alt.hello.
Before:
amc> The b option was added primarily to deal with
amc> this new style of quotation
amc> which became popular after Par 1.41 was released.
amc>
amc> Par still pays attention to body characters.
amc> Par should not mistake "Par" for part of the prefix.
amc> Par should not mistake "." for a suffix.
After "par B=._A_a 50bg":
amc> The b option was added primarily to
amc> deal with this new style of quotation
amc> which became popular after Par 1.41
amc> was released.
amc>
amc> Par still pays attention to body
amc> characters. Par should not mistake
amc> "Par" for part of the prefix. Par
amc> should not mistake "." for a suffix.
SEE ALSO
par.doc
LIMITATIONS
The guess feature guesses wrong in cases like the following:
I calc'd the approx.
Fermi level to 3 sig. digits.
With guess = 1, par will incorrectly assume that "approx." ends a
sentence. If the input were:
I calc'd the approx. Fermi
level to 3 sig. digits.
then par would refuse to put a line break between "approx." and
"Fermi" in the output, mainly to avoid creating the first situation
(in case the paragraph were to be fed back through par again). This
non-breaking space policy does come in handy for cases like
"Mr. Johnson" and "Jan. 1", though. The guess feature only goes one
way. par can preserve wide sentence breaks in a paragraph, or remove
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them, but it can't insert them if they aren't already in the input.
If you use tabs, you may not like the way par handles (or doesn't
handle) them. It expands them into spaces. I didn't let par output
tabs because tabs don't make sense. Not everyone's terminal has the
same tab settings, so text files containing tabs are sometimes
mangled. In fact, almost every text file containing tabs gets mangled
when something is inserted at the beginning of each line (when quoting
e-mail or commenting out a section of a shell script, for example),
making them a pain to edit. In my opinion, the world would be a nicer
place if everyone stopped using tabs, so I'm doing my part by not
letting par output them. (Thanks to ets1@cs.wustl.edu (Eric T.
Stuebe) for showing me the light about tabs.) There is currently no
way for the length of the output prefix to differ from the length of
the input prefix. Ditto for the suffix. I may consider adding this
capability in a future release, but right now I'm not sure how I'd
want it to work.
APOLOGIES
Par began in July 1993 as a small program designed to do one narrow
task: reformat a single paragraph that might have a border on either
side. It was pretty clean back then. Over the next three months, it
very rapidly expanded to handle multiple paragraphs, offer more
options, and take better guesses, at the cost of becoming extremely
complex, and very unclean. It is nowhere near the optimal design for
the larger task it now tries to address. Its only redeeming features
are that it is extremely useful (I find it indispensable), extremely
portable, and very stable (between the release of version 1.41 on 31
Oct 1993 and the release of version 1.50 on 11 Feb 1996, no bugs were
reported). Back in 1993 I had very little experience at writing
documentation for users, so the documentation for Par became rather
nightmarish. There is no separation between how-it-works (which is
painfully complex) and how-to-use-it (which is fairly simple, if you
can ever figure it out). Someday I ought to reexamine the problem,
and redesign a new, clean solution from scratch. I don't know when I
might get enough free time to start on such a project. Text files may
be obsolete by then.
BUGS
If I knew of any bugs, I wouldn't release the package. Of course,
there may be bugs that I haven't yet discovered. If you find any bugs
(in the program or in the documentation), or if you have any
suggestions, please send e-mail to:
amc@cs.wustl.edu
or send paper mail to:
Adam M. Costello
Campus Box 1115
Washington University
One Brookings Dr.
St. Louis, MO 63130-4899
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11 February 1996
USA
When reporting a bug, please include the exact input and command line
options used, and the version number of par, so that I can reproduce
it. The latest release of Par is available on the Web at:
http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~amc/Par/
Note that all of these addresses could change anytime after August
1996. I'll try to leave forward pointers.
- 22 - Formatted: April 26, 2024
