From: Ara.T.Howard@...
Date: 2005-04-29T02:24:29+09:00
Subject: Re: string#fmt - breaking lines (no indent)

On Fri, 29 Apr 2005, Josef 'Jupp' SCHUGT wrote:

> Hi!
>
> After some trouble with mail programs not supporting "format=flowed" I
> wrote a quick hack that line-breaks strings but keeps words intact
> that exceed the intended line-length (currently hard-wired to 72 - I
> already wrote that it is a quick hack, didn't I?). No warranty of any
> kind. Improvements welcome. I did not forget to implement indentations
> - the strings that I apply String#fmt to simply don't have them.
>
> class String
>  def fmt
>    maxlen = 72
>    result = ""
>    temp   = ""
>    gsub(/[ \s]+/, ' ').strip.scan(/[^ ]+/) { |x|
>      if temp == ""
>        temp << x
>      else
>        if temp.length + x.length < maxlen
> 	  temp << " " + x
> 	else
> 	  result << temp + "\n"
> 	  temp = ""
> 	  redo
> 	end
>      end
>    }
>    result + temp
>  end
> end

for anyone wanting to make a really robust version i'm contributing my code to
do the same too:

   module Util
     #
     # wrap a string using options width (default 80) and indent using the indent
     # option (default 0)
     #
       def columnize buf, opts = {}
#--{{{
         width = getopt 'width', opts, 80
         indent = getopt 'indent', opts, 0
         columns = []
         words = buf.split %r/\s+/o
         row = ' ' * indent
         while((word = words.shift))
           if((row.size + word.size) < (width - 1))
             row << word
           else
             columns << row
             row = ' ' * indent
             row << word
           end
           row << ' ' unless row.size == (width - 1)
         end
         columns << row unless row.strip.empty?
         columns.join "\n"
#--}}}
       end
     #
     # look up key in hash as key, then string of key, then intern of key -
     # returning the value or, if key is not found, nil or default
     #
       def getopt opt, hash, default = nil
#--{{{
         key = opt
         return hash[key] if hash.has_key? key
         key = "#{ key }"
         return hash[key] if hash.has_key? key
         key = key.intern
         return hash[key] if hash.has_key? key
         return default
#--}}}
       end
   end


improvements welcome.


-a
-- 
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| email   :: ara [dot] t [dot] howard [at] noaa [dot] gov
| phone   :: 303.497.6469
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| that they pass away. --aitken roshi
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