fitwidth

Purpose

Basically, this script shortens long strings.

So many times I’ve had output that just flowed over so many physical lines on my screen (potentially filling up the entire window, maybe with a single line that’s extremely long) that make the output virtually impossible to read. This script simplifies the output, ideally by making every line fit on the physical window.

Syntax

Syntax: fitwidth [--width INT] [--beginning|--middle|--ending] [file ...]

Options and arguments

| Option | Description | Default | | —— | ———– | ——- | | --width INT | Specifies the maximum length of lines to print out | The default width is based on tput cols which reports the current width of the shell window. | | --beginning | Remove characters from the beginning of the each line until it is no longer than the desired width | --ending is the default behavior | | --middle | Remove characters from the middle of the each line until it is no longer than the desired width | --ending is the default behavior | | --ending | Remove characters from the ending of the each line until it is no longer than the desired width | --ending is the default behavior |

Example

$ tput cols
170
$ peval "'1234567890'*25"
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
$ peval "'1234567890'*25" | fitwidth
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012 ... 89012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
$ peval "'1234567890'*25" | fitwidth --ending
123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345 ....
$ peval "'1234567890'*25" | fitwidth --beginning
.... 678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
$ peval "'1234567890'*25" | fitwidth --width 10
12 ... 890
$

This example makes use of my peval tool.

Notes

• When data is removed from a line in order to meet the desired width, they are replaced by three periods surrounded by a blank on either side.

  When a line is short enough to fit the desired width, it is not changed when it is printed.

• At first the --middle option was the default but I found myself overriding it with --ending more often than not. I finally just changed the default to --ending.