Introduction
Text::Format provides the ability to nicely
format fixed-width text with knowledge of the writeable space (number of
columns), margins, and indentation settings.
Copyright: | Copyright (c) 2002 by Austin Ziegler
|
Version: | 0.52.1
|
Based On: | Perl Text::Format,
Copyright (c) 1998 Gábor Egressy
|
Licence: | Ruby's, Perl Artistic, or GPL version 2 (or later)
|
:abbreviations |
[RW] |
Defines the current abbreviations as an array. This is only used if
extra_space is turned on.
If one is abbreviating "President" as "Pres."
(abbreviations = ["Pres"]), then the results of formatting will
be as illustrated in the table below
extra_space | include? | !include?
true | Pres. Lincoln | Pres. Lincoln
false | Pres. Lincoln | Pres. Lincoln
|
:body_indent |
[R] |
The number of spaces to indent all lines after the first line of a
paragraph.
columns
<-------------------------------------------------------------->
<-----------><------><---------------------------><------------>
left margin INDENT text is formatted into here right margin
|
:columns |
[R] |
The total width of the format area. The margins, indentation, and text are
formatted into this space.
COLUMNS
<-------------------------------------------------------------->
<-----------><------><---------------------------><------------>
left margin indent text is formatted into here right margin
|
:extra_space |
[RW] |
Indicates whether sentence terminators should be followed by a single space
(false), or two spaces (true).
|
:first_indent |
[R] |
The number of spaces to indent the first line of a paragraph.
columns
<-------------------------------------------------------------->
<-----------><------><---------------------------><------------>
left margin INDENT text is formatted into here right margin
|
:format_style |
[R] |
Specifies the format style. Allowable values are:
- LEFT_ALIGN
- Left justified, ragged right.
|A paragraph that is|
|left aligned.|
- RIGHT_ALIGN
- Right justified, ragged left.
|A paragraph that is|
| right aligned.|
- RIGHT_FILL
- Left justified, right ragged, filled to width by spaces. (Essentially the
same as LEFT_ALIGN except that lines are padded on the right.)
|A paragraph that is|
|left aligned. |
- JUSTIFY
- Fully justified, words filled to width by spaces, except the last line.
|A paragraph that|
|is justified.|
|
:left_margin |
[R] |
The number of spaces used for the left margin.
columns
<-------------------------------------------------------------->
<-----------><------><---------------------------><------------>
LEFT MARGIN indent text is formatted into here right margin
|
:nobreak |
[RW] |
Indicates whether or not the non-breaking space feature should be used
|
:nobreak_regex |
[RW] |
A hash which holds the regular expressions on which spaces should not be
broken. The hash is set up such that the key is the first word and the
value is the second word.
For example, if nobreak_regex contains the following hash:
{ '^Mrs?\.$' => '\S+$', '^\S+$' => '^(?:S|J)r\.$'}
Then "Mr. Jones", "Mrs. Jones", and "Jones
Jr." would not be broken. If this simple matching algorithm indicates
that there should not be a break at the current end of line, then a
backtrack is done until there are two words on which line breaking is
permitted. If two such words are not found, then the end of the line will
be broken regardless. If there is a single word on the current line,
then no backtrack is done and the word is stuck on the end.
|
:right_margin |
[R] |
The number of spaces used for the right margin.
columns
<-------------------------------------------------------------->
<-----------><------><---------------------------><------------>
left margin indent text is formatted into here RIGHT MARGIN
|
:tabstop |
[R] |
Indicates the number of spaces that a single tab represents.
|
:tag_paragraph |
[RW] |
Indicates whether the formatting of paragraphs should be done with tagged
paragraphs. Useful only with tag_text.
|
:tag_text |
[RW] |
The array of text to be placed before each paragraph when
tag_paragraph is true. When format() is called, only the first
element of the array is used. When paragraphs is called, then each entry
in the array will be used once, with corresponding paragraphs. If the tag
elements are exhausted before the text is exhausted, then the remaining
paragraphs will not be tagged. Regardless of indentation settings, a blank
line will be inserted between all paragraphs when tag_paragraph is
true.
|
:text |
[RW] |
The text to be manipulated. Note that value is optional, but if the
formatting functions are called without values, this text is what will be
formatted.
Default: | []
|
Used in: | All methods
|
|
Comparable
This constructor takes advantage of a technique for Ruby object
construction introduced by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas (see reference), where
optional values are set using commands in a block.
Text::Format.new {
columns = 72
left_margin = 0
right_margin = 0
first_indent = 4
body_indent = 0
format_style = Text::Format::LEFT_ALIGN
extra_space = false
abbreviations = {}
tag_paragraph = false
tag_text = []
nobreak = false
nobreak_regex = {}
tabstop = 8
text = nil
}
As shown above, arg is optional. If arg is specified and
is a String, then arg is used as the default value of
text. Alternately, an existing Text::Format object can be used or a Hash can be
used. With all forms, a block can be specified.
The total width of the format area. The margins, indentation, and text are
formatted into this space. The value provided is silently converted to a
positive integer.
COLUMNS
<-------------------------------------------------------------->
<-----------><------><---------------------------><------------>
left margin indent text is formatted into here right margin
The number of spaces used for the left margin. The value provided is
silently converted to a positive integer value.
columns
<-------------------------------------------------------------->
<-----------><------><---------------------------><------------>
LEFT MARGIN indent text is formatted into here right margin
The number of spaces used for the right margin. The value provided is
silently converted to a positive integer value.
columns
<-------------------------------------------------------------->
<-----------><------><---------------------------><------------>
left margin indent text is formatted into here RIGHT MARGIN
The number of spaces to indent the first line of a paragraph. The value
provided is silently converted to a positive integer value.
columns
<-------------------------------------------------------------->
<-----------><------><---------------------------><------------>
left margin INDENT text is formatted into here right margin
The number of spaces to indent all lines after the first line of a
paragraph. The value provided is silently converted to a positive integer
value.
columns
<-------------------------------------------------------------->
<-----------><------><---------------------------><------------>
left margin INDENT text is formatted into here right margin
Indicates the number of spaces that a single tab represents.
Specifies the format style. Allowable values are:
- LEFT_ALIGN
- Left justified, ragged right.
|A paragraph that is|
|left aligned.|
- RIGHT_ALIGN
- Right justified, ragged left.
|A paragraph that is|
| right aligned.|
- RIGHT_FILL
- Left justified, right ragged, filled to width by spaces. (Essentially the
same as LEFT_ALIGN except that lines are padded on the right.)
|A paragraph that is|
|left aligned. |
- JUSTIFY
- Fully justified, words filled to width by spaces.
|A paragraph that|
|is justified.|
Indicates that the format style is left alignment.
Indicates that the format style is right alignment.
Indicates that the format style is right fill.
Indicates that the format style is full justification.
Formats text into a nice paragraph format. The text is separated into words
and then reassembled a word at a time using the settings of this Format object. If a word is larger than the number
of columns available for formatting, then word will appear on the line by
itself.
If to_wrap is nil, then the value of text will
be worked on.
Considers each element of text (provided or internal) as a paragraph. If
first_indent is the same as body_indent, then paragraphs
will be separated by a single empty line in the result; otherwise, the
paragraphs will follow immediately after each other. Uses format to do the heavy lifting.
Centers the text, preserving empty lines and tabs.
Replaces all tab characters in the text with tabstop spaces.
Replaces all occurrences of tabstop consecutive spaces with a tab
character.