Text::Wrap - line wrapping to form simple paragraphs

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);

CWText::Wrap::wrap() is a very simple paragraph formatter. It formats a single paragraph at a time by breaking lines at word boundries. Indentation is controlled for the first line (CW$initial_tab) and all subsequent lines (CW$subsequent_tab) independently. Please note: CW$initial_tab and CW$subsequent_tab are the literal strings that will be used: it is unlikley 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().

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

Lines are wrapped at CW$Text::Wrap::columns columns. CW$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 CW$columns - 1.

It is possible to control which characters terminate words by modifying CW$Text::Wrap::break. Set this to a string such as CW'[\s:]' (to break before spaces or colons) or a pre-compiled regexp such as CWqr/[\s']/ (to break before spaces or apostrophes). The default is simply CW'\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.)

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

CWText::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 CW$Text::Wrap::unexpand to a false value. Likewise if you do not want to use 8-character tabstops, set CW$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 CW\n then set CW$Text::Wrap::separator to your preference.

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

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

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

David Muir Sharnoff <muir@idiom.com> with help from Tim Pierce and many many others.