Using par to format stylized Fortran comments

Question

All,

I was wondering if anyone out there was a par guru. I'm mainly wondering if there is a way to get par to see a Fortran comment style that is used in many programs I work with.

For example, if I have:

!  2001Jan01 Jimson    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing 
!                       elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor.
!  2002Jan01 Johnny    Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient 
!                      montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, 
!                      pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. 
!  2004Feb01 Thompson  Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, 
!                      aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. 
!                      Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. 

It would be nice to run par in vim (with :set formatprg=par) and get something like:

!  2001Jan01 Jimson    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing 
!                       elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor.
!  2002Jan01 Johnny    Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis 
!                       dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec 
!                       quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium 
!                       quis, sem. 
!  2004Feb01 Thompson  Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, 
!                       fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In 
!                       enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, 
!                       justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. 
!                       Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. 

where it sees the hanging spaces, etc. Instead par does:

(524) $ par -w80 < text_for_par
!  2001Jan01 Jimson Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.    
!  Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. 2002Jan01 Johnny Aenean massa. Cum sociis   
!  natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus         
!  mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem.     
!  2004Feb01 Thompson Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo,         
!  fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus      
!  ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis   
!  pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus.                                     

which, I do admit, is quite well formatted at 80 characters and keeps the "!<space><space>" at the front.

Unfortunately, par's PARINIT syntax is a bit...mysterious to me. It is entirely possible this is not possible and, if so, okay. But par seems to be powerful in a way like vim is. As long as you know the right confusing character string, it'll do what you want.

Answer 1

I'm not a par expert but if you try something like

cat text_for_par | par 80 -p24 -d1

it should give you what you're looking for. Just look at the man page on par - it tells you how to achieve most things.