fold — Wrap each input line to fit in specified width.
Summary :
fold wrap input lines in each input file and writes the output to standard output. `fold’ counts screen columns by default.
Examples :
$ fold myfile — Fold each input line at column 80 and print in the screen/stdout.
$ fold -w 40 myfile > myfile1 — Fold each input line at column 40 and the output is redirected to myfile1.
$ fold -s -w40 f1 f2 — Fold each input line of f1 and f2 at column 40 and folding will happen at space only.
$ fold -b 40 myfile — Folds at 40th byte place.
$ fold -c 40 myfile — Folds at 40th character position.
Note:
- Normally all the above options will give same output. Difference can be felt only with multi-byte encodings, like UTF-8…
- A tab may count more than one column, backspace decreases the column count, and carriage return sets the column to zero.
Read : man fold