prose

A CLI utility to reformat text.

prose is inspired by par, and aims to be similar, albeit with fewer features, while also being Unicode-aware.

Installation

Via pre-built binary release

Download the latest release for your platform, extract, and put the prose binary wherever you'd like.

NOTE that on recent versions of Mac OS, you may need to un-quarantine the downloaded binary for it to run. To do so:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine path/to/prose

Via cargo

If you're a Rust programmer, prose can be installed with cargo. Note that the minimum supported version of Rust for prose is 1.38.0, although it may work with older versions.

cargo install prose

Examples

Given the following input, a quote by Angela Davis, on STDIN:

I believe profoundly in the possibilities of democracy, but democracy needs
to be emancipated from capitalism. As long as we inhabit
a capitalist democracy, a future of
racial equality, gender equality, economic equality will elude us.

let's look at some invocations and their output.

As a baseline, we can view what a standard fmt would yield.

fmt -44

I believe profoundly in the possibilities of
democracy, but democracy needs to be
emancipated from capitalism. As long as we
inhabit a capitalist democracy, a future of
racial equality, gender equality, economic
equality will elude us.

Using the same width option, prose yields a less jagged output.

prose -w 44

I believe profoundly in the possibilities
of democracy, but democracy needs to be
emancipated from capitalism. As long as we
inhabit a capitalist democracy, a future of
racial equality, gender equality, economic
equality will elude us.

Using the same width option, prose yields a less jagged output.

Prefixes and suffixes (like code comments)

prose attempts to keep prefix/suffix line adornment–such as borders, code comment marks, and indentation–intact.

Consider the the following input:

/* Lorem ipsum dolor sit ameÞ, sea ðicat instructíor deterrúisset cu, ex */
/* graéce scriptæ minimum eós. Nö qui plæcérat eloquentiam, alíenum */
/* sæluÞæÞus evertitur éam nö, mucíus tibíque ad esÞ. Atqui fêugâit eum */
/* id. Síngulis, id meí chöro essent. Íð æssentior moderatius intellégam */
/* næm, solet abhorreant ne cum. Qúod æssum intellegam ad vím, pró diam */
/* vítae nónumy ei, cúm inaní primís té. */
/*  */
/* Ex dicunt åssentiør eum, ad nusquam definiebæs qui, */
/* vidit åtqui per ut. Qui ut simul dicunt */
/* sålutændi. Dūō scaevōla vulputaÞe ut. Quō volupÞua rætiōnibus uÞ, et */
/* postulǽnt intellegǽt vitupērata vim. Primis legimus haȝemus sit æð, */
/* seæ hǣrum, fâcilisi, êum ôfficiis iudicabit âd. */

And the output:

prose -w 44 -l

/* Lorem ipsum dolor sit ameÞ, sea        */
/* ðicat instructíor deterrúisset cu,     */
/* ex graéce scriptæ minimum eós. Nö      */
/* qui plæcérat eloquentiam, alíenum      */
/* sæluÞæÞus evertitur éam nö, mucíus     */
/* tibíque ad esÞ. Atqui fêugâit eum      */
/* id. Síngulis, id meí chöro essent.     */
/* Íð æssentior moderatius intellégam     */
/* næm, solet abhorreant ne cum. Qúod     */
/* æssum intellegam ad vím, pró diam      */
/* vítae nónumy ei, cúm inaní primís té.  */
/*                                        */
/* Ex dicunt åssentiør eum, ad nusquam    */
/* definiebæs qui, vidit åtqui per        */
/* ut. Qui ut simul dicunt sålutændi.     */
/* Dūō scaevōla vulputaÞe ut. Quō         */
/* volupÞua rætiōnibus uÞ, et postulǽnt   */
/* intellegǽt vitupērata vim. Primis      */
/* legimus haȝemus sit æð, seæ hǣrum,     */
/* fâcilisi, êum ôfficiis iudicabit âd.   */

It similarly attempts to preserve paragraph indentation:

Given this indented input:

    I believe profoundly in the possibilities of democracy, but democracy needs
to be emancipated from capitalism. As long as we inhabit
a capitalist democracy, a future of
racial equality, gender equality, economic equality will elude us.

prose -w 60

    I believe profoundly in the possibilities of democracy,
but democracy needs to be emancipated from capitalism. As
long as we inhabit a capitalist democracy, a future of
racial equality, gender equality, economic equality will
elude us.

Email quotes

prose attempts to be smart about keeping email quoting levels, if they are the recognizable format of > introducing each new quote level. With the following example email input:

Abby,

Whoops! Sorry about that. I forgot to export it as a PDF. Re-attaching
to this message. Again, let me know if you need anything else!

Bill

Abby writes:

> Bill,
> 
> I tried to open the attachment, but it looks like it isn't in the correct format. Could
> you re-send it?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Abby
> 
> Bill writes:
> 
> > Abby,
> >
> > I like the way this project is turning out so far! Kudos.
> > 
> > I'm attaching my first pass at working version. Let me know if you need anything else
> > before our meeting on Tuesday.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > 
> > Bill
> 
>
> This message and its contents are confidential or whatever.
> 

And a just the width set:

prose -w 48

Abby,

Whoops! Sorry about that. I forgot to export it
as a PDF. Re-attaching to this message. Again,
let me know if you need anything else!

Bill

Abby writes:

> Bill,
>
> I tried to open the attachment, but it looks
> like it isn't in the correct format. Could you
> re-send it?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Abby
>
> Bill writes:
>
> > Abby,
> >
> > I like the way this project is turning out
> > so far! Kudos.
> >
> > I'm attaching my first pass at working
> > version. Let me know if you need anything
> > else before our meeting on Tuesday.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Bill
>
> This message and its contents are confidential
> or whatever.
>

Using the fit option, "-f"

Without -f, the result works, but could look slightly less jagged on the ends.

prose -w 58

I believe profoundly in the possibilities of democracy,
but democracy needs to be emancipated from capitalism. As
long as we inhabit a capitalist democracy, a future of
racial equality, gender equality, economic equality will
elude us.

A width parameter of 56 or so would get us there, and if we are okay having the longest possible maximum line length be less than the target (width) we specify, we can pass -f.

prose -w 58 -f

I believe profoundly in the possibilities of democracy,
but democracy needs to be emancipated from capitalism.
As long as we inhabit a capitalist democracy, a future
of racial equality, gender equality, economic equality
will elude us.

With markdown input

Take, for example, this portion of the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct:

## Our Pledge

In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, we as
contributors and maintainers pledge to making participation in our project and
our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body
size, disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression,
level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal
appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.

## Our Standards

Examples of behavior that contributes to creating a positive environment
include:

* Using welcoming and inclusive language
* Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences
* Gracefully accepting constructive criticism
* Focusing on what is best for the community
* Showing empathy towards other community members

With a standard invocation:

prose -w 42

## Our Pledge

In the interest of fostering an open
and welcoming environment, we as
contributors and maintainers pledge to
making participation in our project
and our community a harassment-free
experience for everyone, regardless of
age, body size, disability, ethnicity,
sex characteristics, gender identity
and expression, level of experience,
education, socio-economic status,
nationality, personal appearance,
race, religion, or sexual identity and
orientation.

## Our Standards

Examples of behavior that contributes to
creating a positive environment include:

* Using welcoming and inclusive language
* Being respectful of differing viewpoints
* and experiences Gracefully accepting
* constructive criticism Focusing on
* what is best for the community Showing
* empathy towards other community members

Notice how the bulleted list has been run together. To leave bulleted lists and other formatting intact, use the -m or --markdown switch. Doing so will interpret the input as markdown, only formatting plain paragraphs.

prose -w 42 --markdown

## Our Pledge

In the interest of fostering an open
and welcoming environment, we as
contributors and maintainers pledge to
making participation in our project
and our community a harassment-free
experience for everyone, regardless of
age, body size, disability, ethnicity,
sex characteristics, gender identity
and expression, level of experience,
education, socio-economic status,
nationality, personal appearance,
race, religion, or sexual identity and
orientation.

## Our Standards

Examples of behavior that contributes to
creating a positive environment include:

* Using welcoming and inclusive language
* Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences
* Gracefully accepting constructive criticism
* Focusing on what is best for the community
* Showing empathy towards other community members

Future versions may improve on this by indenting bulleted lists more intelligently.

License

Licensed under either of:

• Apache License, Version 2.0, (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
• MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

at your option.