Stan Marsh <[email protected]> writes: > I got to wondering about what the maximum value you can set for the width for > the 'fmt' > command is. Experimentation tells me the answer is 2500. 2500 works, but > any number > greater than that (starting with 2501) generates an error message. > > I suggest two things: > > 1) That the maximum (whatever it is) be documented in "man fmt". > (And, incidentally, why should there be any maximum at all?) > > 2) That there be an option to say, essentially, no limit. Say "-0", which > currently does > something else. > > BTW, the reason for #2 is that occasionally I have the need to take a file > that is > formatted "in lines" - that is, normal text with a newline every 75 > characters (or > thereabouts) and I need to convert to be "in paragraphs" - each paragraph is > a single line > regardless of length. I can use "fmt -1000" (or, it seems, any number up to > 2500), but > that obviously feels like a hack.
Yes, the limit is 2500. It is a known issue that no one has gotten around to fixing. There are 2 reports in debbugs about it, but I've been getting 504 errors the past few days trying to access it. I'll send them once I can connect again. Collin
