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From: Hans-Bernhard Broeker <broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: col filter
Date: 13 Dec 2001 17:42:45 GMT
Organization: Aachen University of Technology (RWTH)
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PAVOL  JUHAS <juhas AT blue DOT seas DOT upenn DOT edu> wrote:
> CBFalconer (cbfalconer AT yahoo DOT com) wrote:
>> PAVOL JUHAS wrote:
>> > 
>> > I did my homework on GOOGLE, but I could not find it:
>> > Is there a col utility - reverse line-feeds filter for DJGPP?

>> What are you talking about?

> AFAIK, col is available on *IX/Linux systems,  col -b is useful for
> filtering the output of man to get a plain text (without C-H characters).

Originally, it's prime purpose was to filter out "reverse linefeeds"
(a rarely used ASCII steering character --- essentially the equivalent
of a backspace, but for undoing linefeed, not space).  On a
traditional Unix system, you'ld need that to get plain text out of
*roff output.  Options remove other *roff artifacts besides reverse
linefeeds, like "A<Backspace>_" for and underlined letter 'A'.

On a GNU-based system, you usually don't need 'col', because GNU's
*roff implementation "groff" doesn't output reverse linefeeds in the
first place, and 'less' know how to interpret backspace sequences as
highlighting.  And if you want printed output of manpages, you would
output directly to postscript, instead of having some typewrite
emphasize and underline by means of backspace sequences and similar
methods.

If you really need one, I'm reasonably sure that the CAWF package (-->
Simtel.Net) has it.
-- 
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.