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linuxshellunixterminal

cat file with no line wrap

In *nix, how do I display (cat) a file with no line-wrapping? Longer lines should be cut such that they fit into the screen width.

Solution

  • Note that cut accepts a filename as an argument.

    This seems to work for me:

    watch 'bash -c "cut -c -$COLUMNS file"'

    For testing, I added a right margin:

    watch 'bash -c "cut -c -$(($COLUMNS-10)) file"'

    When I resized my terminal, the truncation was updated to match.