phpman > perldoc > Text::Wrap

NAME
    Text::Wrap - line wrapping to form simple paragraphs

SYNOPSIS
    Example 1

            use Text::Wrap;

            $initial_tab = "\t";    # Tab before first line
            $subsequent_tab = "";   # All other lines flush left

            print wrap($initial_tab, $subsequent_tab, @text);
            print fill($initial_tab, $subsequent_tab, @text);

            $lines = wrap($initial_tab, $subsequent_tab, @text);

            @paragraphs = fill($initial_tab, $subsequent_tab, @text);

    Example 2

            use Text::Wrap qw(wrap $columns $huge);

            $columns = 132;         # Wrap at 132 characters
            $huge = 'die';
            $huge = 'wrap';
            $huge = 'overflow';

    Example 3

            use Text::Wrap;

            $Text::Wrap::columns = 72;
            print wrap('', '', @text);

DESCRIPTION
    "Text::Wrap::wrap()" is a very simple paragraph formatter. It formats a single paragraph at a
    time by breaking lines at word boundaries. Indentation is controlled for the first line
    ($initial_tab) and all subsequent lines ($subsequent_tab) independently. Please note:
    $initial_tab and $subsequent_tab are the literal strings that will be used: it is unlikely you
    would want to pass in a number.

    "Text::Wrap::fill()" is a simple multi-paragraph formatter. It formats each paragraph separately
    and then joins them together when it's done. It will destroy any whitespace in the original
    text. It breaks text into paragraphs by looking for whitespace after a newline. In other
    respects, it acts like wrap().

    "wrap()" compresses trailing whitespace into one newline, and "fill()" deletes all trailing
    whitespace.

    Both "wrap()" and "fill()" return a single string.

    Unlike the old Unix fmt(1) utility, this module correctly accounts for any Unicode combining
    characters (such as diacriticals) that may occur in each line for both expansion and
    unexpansion. These are overstrike characters that do not increment the logical position. Make
    sure you have the appropriate Unicode settings enabled.

OVERRIDES
    "Text::Wrap::wrap()" has a number of variables that control its behavior. Because other modules
    might be using "Text::Wrap::wrap()" it is suggested that you leave these variables alone! If you
    can't do that, then use "local($Text::Wrap::VARIABLE) = YOURVALUE" when you change the values so
    that the original value is restored. This "local()" trick will not work if you import the
    variable into your own namespace.

    Lines are wrapped at $Text::Wrap::columns columns (default value: 76). $Text::Wrap::columns
    should be set to the full width of your output device. In fact, every resulting line will have
    length of no more than "$columns - 1".

    It is possible to control which characters terminate words by modifying $Text::Wrap::break. Set
    this to a string such as '[\s:]' (to break before spaces or colons) or a pre-compiled regexp
    such as "qr/[\s']/" (to break before spaces or apostrophes). The default is simply '\s'; that
    is, words are terminated by spaces. (This means, among other things, that trailing punctuation
    such as full stops or commas stay with the word they are "attached" to.) Setting
    $Text::Wrap::break to a regular expression that doesn't eat any characters (perhaps just a
    forward look-ahead assertion) will cause warnings.

    Beginner note: In example 2, above $columns is imported into the local namespace, and set
    locally. In example 3, $Text::Wrap::columns is set in its own namespace without importing it.

    "Text::Wrap::wrap()" starts its work by expanding all the tabs in its input into spaces. The
    last thing it does it to turn spaces back into tabs. If you do not want tabs in your results,
    set $Text::Wrap::unexpand to a false value. Likewise if you do not want to use 8-character
    tabstops, set $Text::Wrap::tabstop to the number of characters you do want for your tabstops.

    If you want to separate your lines with something other than "\n" then set
    $Text::Wrap::separator to your preference. This replaces all newlines with
    $Text::Wrap::separator. If you just want to preserve existing newlines but add new breaks with
    something else, set $Text::Wrap::separator2 instead.

    When words that are longer than $columns are encountered, they are broken up. "wrap()" adds a
    "\n" at column $columns. This behavior can be overridden by setting $huge to 'die' or to
    'overflow'. When set to 'die', large words will cause "die()" to be called. When set to
    'overflow', large words will be left intact.

    Historical notes: 'die' used to be the default value of $huge. Now, 'wrap' is the default value.

EXAMPLES
    Code:

      print wrap("\t","",<<END);
      This is a bit of text that forms
      a normal book-style indented paragraph
      END

    Result:

      "     This is a bit of text that forms
      a normal book-style indented paragraph
      "

    Code:

      $Text::Wrap::columns=20;
      $Text::Wrap::separator="|";
      print wrap("","","This is a bit of text that forms a normal book-style paragraph");

    Result:

      "This is a bit of|text that forms a|normal book-style|paragraph"

SUBVERSION
    This module comes in two flavors: one for modern perls (5.10 and above) and one for ancient
    obsolete perls. The version for modern perls has support for Unicode. The version for old perls
    does not. You can tell which version you have installed by looking at $Text::Wrap::SUBVERSION:
    it is "old" for obsolete perls and "modern" for current perls.

    This man page is for the version for modern perls and so that's probably what you've got.

SEE ALSO
    For correct handling of East Asian half- and full-width characters, see Text::WrapI18N. For more
    detailed controls: Text::Format.

AUTHOR
    David Muir Sharnoff <cpan AT dave.org> with help from Tim Pierce and many many others.

LICENSE
    Copyright (C) 1996-2009 David Muir Sharnoff. Copyright (C) 2012-2013 Google, Inc. This module
    may be modified, used, copied, and redistributed at your own risk. Although allowed by the
    preceding license, please do not publicly redistribute modified versions of this code with the
    name "Text::Wrap" unless it passes the unmodified Text::Wrap test suite.