fold: Text Wrapping and Line Limiting

Overview

fold reads text from files or standard input and wraps each line to a specified width (defaulting to 80 columns), sending the output to standard output. This enhances readability when viewing long lines in a terminal or helps reformat text to meet specific layout requirements.

Key Features

Wraps lines to a specified width
Processes by bytes or columns
Wraps at spaces

Key Options

These are the main options that control the core functionality of the fold command.

Line Wrapping Control

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Usage Examples

Practical examples of using the fold command.

Default Wrapping (80 Columns)

fold example.txt

Wraps the content of a file to the default 80-column width.

Wrapping to a Specific Width (40 Columns)

fold -w 40 example.txt

Wraps the content of a file to a 40-column width.

Using with Pipes

echo "This is a very long text line. I will use the fold command to make this line shorter." | fold -w 30

Passes a long text line through a pipe to fold, wrapping it to a 30-column width.

Wrapping at Spaces

echo "This is a very long text line. I will use the fold command to make this line shorter." | fold -s -w 30

Wraps lines to a 30-column width at spaces, preventing words from being cut.

Wrapping by Bytes

echo "한글 테스트" | fold -b -w 5

Wraps text to a 5-byte width. Multi-byte characters like Korean may be broken.

Tips & Considerations

Useful tips and points to consider when using the fold command.

Leveraging Pipes

fold is very useful for processing text in real-time by connecting it with the output of other commands using pipes (|). For example, you can use it like `cat long_log.txt | fold -w 70`.

Bytes (-b) vs. Columns (-w)

The `-b` option calculates width in bytes, so using it with text containing multi-byte characters like Korean may result in broken characters. For general readability, it is recommended to use the `-w` (column-based) option.

Preserving Words (-s)

The `-s` option helps preserve the meaning of text by attempting to wrap lines at spaces rather than cutting words in the middle.