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



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

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 if no file operands are specified, and
       shall be used if a file operand is ''--'' and the implementation treats
       the ''--'' as meaning standard input.  Otherwise, the standard input shall
       not be used.  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 POSIX.1-2017, Section 8.2, Internationalization
                 Variables for the precedence of internationalization
                 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 standard
                 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

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1-2017, Chapter _8, Environment
       Variables

COPYRIGHT
       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
       from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology --
       Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
       Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 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.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

       Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are
       most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source
       files to man page format. To report such errors, see
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .



IEEE/The Open Group                  2017                               ASA(1)
