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https://github.com/nilqed/par

par is a paragraph reformatter, vaguely similar to fmt, but better.
https://github.com/nilqed/par

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par is a paragraph reformatter, vaguely similar to fmt, but better.

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README

          

This is a fork from https://bitbucket.org/amc-nicemice/par/
Also see http://www.nicemice.net/par/

-------
par.doc
last touched in Par 1.53.0
last meaningful change in Par 1.53.0
Copyright 1993, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2020 Adam M. Costello

Par 1.53.0 is a package containing:

+ This doc file.
+ A man page based on this doc file.
+ The ANSI C source for the filter "par".
+ Associated scripts and text.

Contents

Contents
File List
Rights and Responsibilities
Compilation
Synopsis
Description
*Quick Start
Terminology
Options
Environment
Details
Diagnostics
Examples
Limitations
Apologies
Bugs

File List

Par 1.53.0 consists of the following files:

buffer.c 1.53.0
buffer.h 1.53.0
charset.c 1.53.0
charset.h 1.53.0
errmsg.c 1.53.0
errmsg.h 1.53.0
par.1 1.53.0
par.c 1.53.0
par.doc 1.53.0
protoMakefile 1.53.0
reformat.c 1.53.0
reformat.h 1.53.0
releasenotes 1.53.0
test-par 1.53.0

The version number for each file is defined to be the last version
of Par that touched it. Each file is a text file which identifies
itself on the first or second line, and identifies the version of
Par that last touched it on the next line, so you can always tell
which file is which, even if the files have been renamed.

The file "par.1" is a man page for the filter par (not to be
confused with the package Par, which contains the source code for
par). "par.1" is based on this doc file, and conveys much (not
all) of the same information, but "par.doc" is the definitive
documentation for both par and Par.

Rights and Responsibilities

The files listed in the Files List section above are Copyright
(various years, see the copyright notice in each file)
Adam M. Costello (henceforth "I", "me").

I grant everyone ("you") permission to do whatever you like with
these files, provided that if you modify them you take reasonable
steps to avoid confusing or misleading people about who wrote the
modified files (both you and I) or what version they are. All my
versions of Par will have version numbers consisting of only digits
and periods, so you could distinguish your versions by including
some other kind of character.

I encourage you to send me your suggestions for improvements. See
the Bugs section for my address.

Though I have tried to make sure that Par is free of bugs, I make no
guarantees about its soundness. Therefore, I am not responsible for
any damage resulting from the use of these files.

You may alternatively use these files under the MIT License:

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation
files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without
restriction, including without limitation the rights to use,
copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or
sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom
the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following
conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY
KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT
HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY,
WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR
OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Compilation

To compile par, you need an ANSI C compiler. Follow the
instructions in the comments in protoMakefile.

If your compiler generates any warnings that you think are
legitimate, please tell me about them (see the Bugs section).

Note that all variables in par are either constant or automatic
(or both), which means that par can be made reentrant (if your
compiler supports it). Given the right operating system, it should
be possible for several par processes to share the same code space
and the same data space (but not the same stack, of course) in
memory.

Synopsis
par [help] [version] [B] [P] [Q]
[W] [Z] [h[]] [p[]]
[r[]] [s[]] [T[]] [w[]] [b[]]
[c[]] [d[

]] [E[]] [e[]] [f[]]
[g[]] [i[]] [j[]] [l[]] [q[]]
[R[]] [t[]]

Things enclosed in [square brackets] are optional. Things enclosed
in are parameters.

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 to the PARINIT
environment variable the following value:

rTbgqR B=.,?'_A_a_@ Q=_s>|

The spaces, question mark, apostrophe, 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
following escape sequences:

__ = an underscore
_s = a space
_S = all space characters
_b = a backslash (\)
_q = a single quote (')
_Q = a double quote (")
_A = all upper case letters
_a = all lower case letters
_@ = all neither-case letters
_0 = 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.

The exact meanings of _S, _A, _a, _@, and _0 are
locale-dependent. (Actually, all locales are supposed to
agree on _0, but not on the others.) In the default "C"
locale: _S includes only space, formfeed, newline, carriage
return, tab, and vertical tab; _A includes only A through Z;
_a includes only a through z; _@ includes nothing; and _0
includes only 0 through 9.

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 alphabetic character or decimal digit, _A_a_@_0 in
charset syntax (see above).

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 member of the set of characters defined by the Z option.
Initially, before any Z options have been processed, the
set contains period, question mark, exclamation point, and
colon.

white character
A member of the set of characters defined by the W option.
Initially, before any W options have been processed, the set
contains space, formfeed, newline, carriage return, tab, and
vertical tab.

Functions:

comprelen
Given a non-empty sequence of lines, let be their
longest common prefix. If the parameter is 0, place
a divider just after the leading non-body characters in
(at the beginning if there are none). If is 1, place
the divider just after the last non-space non-body character
in (at the beginning if there is none), then advance
the divider over any immediately following spaces. The
comprelen of is the number of characters preceding the
divider.

comsuflen
Given a non-empty sequence of lines, let

be the
comprelen of . Let be the set of lines which results
from stripping the first

characters from each line in
. Let be the longest common suffix of the lines
in . If is 0, place a divider just before the
trailing non-body characters in (at the end if there are
none), then advance the divider over all but the last of any
immediately following spaces. If is 1, place the
divider just before the first non-space non-body character,
then back up the divider over one immediately preceding
space if there is one. The comsuflen of 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 be the fallback prelen of an IP. If the IP
contains more than one line, or if is 0, then
the augmented fallback prelen of the IP is simply .
Otherwise, it is plus the number of quote characters
immediately following the first 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:

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 bodiless for some .

order bodiless line
There is no such thing as an order 0 bodiless line. Suppose
is a a contiguous subsequence of a segment (see below)
containing at least two lines, containing no order -1
bodiless lines, bounded above and below by order -1
bodiless lines and/or the beginning/end of the segment.
Let

and be the comprelen and comsuflen of .
Any member of which, if stripped of its first

and
last characters, would be blank (or, if the line was not
inserted by the feature and the parameter
is non-zero, would consist of the same character repeated
at least times), is order bodiless. The first

characters of the bodiless line comprise its prefix;
the last 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
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 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
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 such that
there are no alphanumeric characters in the word after ,
but there is at least one alphanumeric character in the word
before .

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 " followed by its version number is
printed on the output.

B is a single character, either an equal sign (=),
a plus sign (+), or a minus sign (-), and is a
string using charset syntax. If is an equal sign,
the set of body characters is set to the character set
defined by . If is a plus/minus sign, the
characters in the set defined by 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.

P Just like the B option, except that it applies to the
set of protective characters.

Q Just like the B option, except that it applies to the
set of quote characters.

W Just like the B option, except that it applies to the
set of white characters.

Z Just like the B option, except that it applies to the
set of terminal characters.

All remaining options are used to set values of parameters. Values
set by command line options hold for all paragraphs. Unset
parameters are given default values. Any parameters whose default
values depend on the IP (namely and ), if left
unset, are recomputed separately for each paragraph.

The approximate role of each parameter is described here. See the
Details section for the rest of the story.

The first six parameters, , , , ,
, and , may be set to any unsigned decimal integer less
than 10000.

h[] Mainly affects the default values of and
. 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[] The first characters of each line of the OP
are copied from the first characters of the
corresponding line of the IP. If there are more than
+1 lines in the IP, the default value is the
comprelen of all the lines in the IP except the first
of them. Otherwise, the default value is the
augmented fallback prelen of the IP. If the p option is
given without a number, is unset, even if it
had been set earlier. (See also the h and q options.)

r[] If is non-zero, bodiless lines have the number
of instances of their repeat characters increased or
decreased until the length of the line is .
The exact value of 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[] The last characters of each line of the OP
are copied from the last characters of the
corresponding line of the IP. If there are more than
+1 lines in the IP, the default value is the
comsuflen of all the lines in the IP except the first
of them. Otherwise, the default value is the
fallback suflen of the IP. If the s option is given
without a number, is unset, even if it had been
set earlier. (See also the h option.)

T[] Tab characters in the input are expanded to spaces,
assuming tab stops every columns. Must not be
0. Defaults to 1. If the T option is given without a
number, the value 8 is inferred.

w[] No line in the OP may contain more than
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, , ,

, ,
, , , , , , , ,
and , may be set to either 0 or 1. If the number is absent
in the option, the value 1 is inferred.

b[] If 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
is 0, prefixes and suffixes may not contain any body
characters at all. Defaults to 0.

c[] If is 1, all words are considered capitalized.
This currently affects only the application of the g
option. Defaults to 0.

d[

] If
is 0, each block becomes an IP. If
is 1,
each block is subdivided into IPs as follows: Let


be the comprelen of the block. Let a line's status be
1 if its (


+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[] If 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[] If is 1, superfluous lines withheld from the
output. Defaults to 0.

f[] If is 1 and 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[] If 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[] If is 1, then vacant lines inserted because
is 1 are invisible; that is, they are not
output. If is 0, has no effect.
Defaults to 0. (See also the q option.)

j[] If is 1, par justifies the OP, inserting spaces
between words so that all lines in the OP have length
(except the last, if is 0). Defaults to
0. (See also the w, l, and f options.)

l[] If is 1, par tries to make the last line of the
OP about the same length as the others. Defaults to 0.

q[] If 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 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.
also affects the default value of .
Defaults to 0. (See also the p and i options.)

R[] If is 1, it is considered an error for an input
word to contain more than = ( - -
) characters. Otherwise, such words are chopped
after each th character into shorter words. Defaults
to 0.

t[] Has no effect if is 0 or is 1.
Otherwise, if is 0, all lines in the OP have
length . If is 1, the length of the
lines is decreased until the suffixes touch the body of
the OP. Defaults to the logical OR of and .
(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,
and are assigned before , and and are
assigned before (because of the dependencies).

It is an error if <= + .

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 arguments from
PARINIT before it reads them from the command line.
Within the value of PARINIT, arguments are separated by
the initial set of white characters.

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 - ( %
) spaces, where is the number of characters preceding 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 is 0, all bodiless lines are vacant, and they are all
simply stripped of trailing spaces before being output. If
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 .

If is 1, superfluous lines are not output. If and
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 and

(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 characters and the last
characters of each input line are removed and remembered. It is
an error for any line to contain fewer than +
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 is 1, some words might be merged (see g in the Options
section). The first word includes any spaces that precede it on the
same line.

Let = - - .

If 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
is 0, adjacent words within a line are separated by a single
space (or sometimes two if is 1), and line breaks are chosen
so that the paragraph satisfies the following properties:

1) No line contains more than characters.

2) If is 1, the difference between the lengths of the
shortest and longest lines is as small as possible.

3) The shortest line is as long as possible, subject to
properties 1 and 2.

4) Let be if is 0, or the length of the
longest line if is 1. The sum of the squares of the
differences between and the lengths of the lines is
as small as possible, subject to properties 1, 2, and 3.

If 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 is 1, adjacent words within a line are separated by one
space (or sometimes two if is 1) plus zero or more extra
spaces. The value of is disregarded, and line breaks are
chosen so that the paragraph satisfies the following properties:

1) Every line contains exactly 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 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
, empty lines are added at the end to bring the number of
lines up to .

If is 0 and is 1, is changed to be the length of
the longest line.

If is not 0, each line is padded at the end with spaces to
bring its length up to .

To each line is prepended characters. Let be the
number of lines in the IP, let be the augmented fallback
prelen of the IP, and let be the fallback suflen of the IP.
The characters which are prepended to the th line are chosen as
follows:

1) If <= , the characters are copied from the ones that were
removed from the beginning of the th input line.

2) If > > , the characters are copied from the ones
that were removed from the beginning of the last input line.

3) If > and <= , the first min(,)
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 characters. The characters
which are appended to the th line are chosen as follows:

1) If <= , the characters are copied from the ones that were
removed from the end of the nth input line.

2) If > > , the characters are copied from the ones
that were removed from the end of the last input line.

3) If > and <= , the first min(,)
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 ).

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 preceding 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
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, */
/* 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 */
/* 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,
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
> 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 */
/* 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 */
/* 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
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":

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.

Limitations

The