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 (consult the correspond-
       ing 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  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.1-2008,	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 other-
       wise. 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.1-2008, Chapter 8, Environment Variables

COPYRIGHT

       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technol-
       ogy -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C)  2013  by	the  Institute	of
       Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group.  (This is POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1 applied.) 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 Stan-
       dard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.unix.org/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						       2013								   ASA(1P)