On Mon, Jan 4, 2016 at 11:15 PM, Michal Mazurek <akf...@jasminek.net> wrote:
> On 01:24:35, 5.01.16, Ingo Schwarze wrote:
>> +If an output line would be broken after a non-blank character but
>> +contains at least one blank character, break the line earlier,
>> +after the last blank character.
>> +This is useful to avoid line breaks in the middle of words, if
>> +possible.
>
> After a second look, even though the current documentation mentions
> a "blank character" the source code shows that in fact a space is meant:
>
> if (split_words) {
> for (i = 0, last_space = -1; i < indx; i++)
> if(buf[i] == ' ')
> last_space = i;
> }
For a utility like fold(1) which is covered by the POSIX/Single Unix
Specification, we should think hard about diverging from the the spec.
SUSv7 says:
-s If a segment of a line contains a <blank> within the first width
column positions (or
bytes), break the line after the last such <blank>
meeting the width constraints. If
there is no <blank> meeting the requirements, the -s
option shall have no effect for
that output segment of the input line.
which seems to agree with the current manpage, suggesting the
code--not the documentation--is wrong.
(Yes, OpenBSD diverges from POSIX on some points...where we explicitly
think POSIX is unsafe or Wrong. To my knowledge, this is not one of
those.)
Philip Guenther
