When text has leading whitespace, it replaces runs of
n spaces with a tab character. Normally
n should be 8, as that is the hardwired tab width of most terminals, but you can change it to something else if you need to. (I suspect you don't, though.)
The first parameter to
wrap says how to indent the first line, and the second parameter says how to indent subsequent lines. If you want them indented by thirty spaces, try
" " x 30 for the second parameter.
Code:
vnix$ perl -MText::Wrap -e 'print wrap(""," " x 30, <>)' /etc/motd | head -5
Linux indeed 2.6.24-17-generic #1 SMP Thu May 1 13:57:17 UTC 2008 x86_64
The programs included with the Ubuntu system
are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program
