NAME

fold — fold long lines for finite width output device

SYNOPSIS

fold	[-bs] [-w width] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION

fold is a filter which folds the contents of the specified files, or the standard input if no files are specified, breaking the lines to have a maximum of 80 characters.

The options are as follows:

-b

Count width in bytes rather than column positions.

-s

Fold line after the last blank character within the first width column positions (or bytes). If a blank character does not exist within the width, then a longer line will still be split at the width.

-w width

Specifies width to use as a line width, instead of the default 80 characters.

ENVIRONMENT

LC_CTYPE

EXIT STATUS

The fold utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

SEE ALSO

expand(1), fmt(1)

STANDARDS

The fold utility conforms to IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”).

HISTORY

The fold utility appeared in 1BSD.

BUGS

If underlining is present it may be messed up by folding.

Width should be a multiple of 8 if tabs are present, or the tabs should be expanded using expand(1) before using fold.