ASA(1P)                                             POSIX Programmer's Manual                                            ASA(1P)



PROLOG
       This  manual  page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (con-
       sult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the  interface  may  not  be  implemented  on
       Linux.

NAME
       asa - interpret carriage-control characters

SYNOPSIS
       asa [ file ... ]

DESCRIPTION
       The  asa  utility shall write its input files to standard output, mapping carriage-control characters from the text files
       to line-printer control sequences in an implementation-defined manner.

       The first character of every line shall be removed from the input, and the following actions are performed.

       If the character removed is:

       <space>
              The rest of the line is output without change.

       0      A <newline> is output, then the rest of the input line.

       1      One or more implementation-defined characters that causes an advance to the next page shall be output, followed by
              the rest of the input line.

       +      The  <newline>  of  the  previous  line  shall be replaced with one or more implementation-defined characters that
              causes printing to return to column position 1, followed by the rest of the input line. If the '+'  is  the  first
              character in the input, it shall be equivalent to <space>.


       The  action  of the asa utility is unspecified upon encountering any character other than those listed above as the first
       character in a line.

OPTIONS
       None.

OPERANDS
       file   A pathname of a text file used for input. If no file operands are specified, the standard input shall be used.


STDIN
       The standard input shall be used only if no file operands are specified; see the INPUT FILES section.

INPUT FILES
       The input files shall be text files.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of asa:

       LANG   Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. (See the  Base  Definitions
              volume  of  IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 8.2, Internationalization Variables for the precedence of international-
              ization variables used to determine the values of locale categories.)

       LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other internationalization variables.

       LC_CTYPE
              Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-
              byte as opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments and input files).

       LC_MESSAGES
              Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of diagnostic messages written to stan-
              dard error.

       NLSPATH
              Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES .


ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
       Default.

STDOUT
       The standard output shall be the text from the input file modified as described in the DESCRIPTION section.

STDERR
       None.

OUTPUT FILES
       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
       None.

EXIT STATUS
       The following exit values shall be returned:

        0     All input files were output successfully.

       >0     An error occurred.


CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
       Default.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE
       None.

EXAMPLES
        1. The following command:


           asa file

       permits the viewing of file (created by a program using FORTRAN-style carriage-control characters) on a terminal.

        2. The following command:


           a.out | asa | lp

       formats the FORTRAN output of a.out and directs it to the printer.

RATIONALE
       The asa utility is needed to map "standard" FORTRAN 77 output into a form acceptable to contemporary  printers.  Usually,
       asa is used to pipe data to the lp utility; see lp.

       This  utility is generally used only by FORTRAN programs. The standard developers decided to retain asa to avoid breaking
       the historical large base of FORTRAN applications that put carriage-control characters in their output files. There is no
       requirement that a system have a FORTRAN compiler in order to run applications that need asa.

       Historical  implementations  have used an ASCII <form-feed> in response to a 1 and an ASCII <carriage-return> in response
       to a '+' . It is suggested that implementations treat characters other than 0, 1, and '+' as <space> in  the  absence  of
       any  compelling reason to do otherwise. However, the action is listed here as "unspecified", permitting an implementation
       to provide extensions to access fast multiple-line slewing and channel seeking in a non-portable manner.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
       None.

SEE ALSO
       fort77, lp

COPYRIGHT
       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003  Edition,  Standard  for
       Information  Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copy-
       right (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any
       discrepancy  between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group
       Standard  is  the  referee   document.   The   original   Standard   can   be   obtained   online   at   http://www.open-
       group.org/unix/online.html .



IEEE/The Open Group                                           2003                                                       ASA(1P)