nowrap - truncates input lines longer than the current terminal width - Usage: cat somefile_with_long_lines.txt | nowrap.pl

nowrap.pl

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

my $cols=`tput cols`; chomp $cols;

while(<>){
  chompnl($_); my $l=0; my $out=''; my $ansi='';
  while($_ ne '' && $l<$cols) {
    if(/(.*?)(\t|\033\[[\d\;]+m)(.*)/) {
      my $l1=length($1);
      my $add=substr($1,0,$cols-$l%$cols);
      $out.=$add; $l+=length($add);
      if($2 eq "\t") {
        my $ex=8-$l%8;
        $out.=$2 if($l+$ex<=$cols);
        $l+=$ex;
      } else {
        $out.=$2; # ANSI codes take up no room
        $ansi="\x1b[0m"; # reset the possibly-truncated colours
      }
      $_=$3;
    } else {
      my $add=substr($_,0,$cols-$l%$cols);
      $out.=$add; $l+=length($add);
      $_='';
    }
  }
  print "$out$ansi\n";
}

# chomp() on unix doesn't eat "\r"...
sub chompnl {   # Warning: don't stuff up $1
  chop $_[0] while((substr($_[0],-1) eq "\015")||(substr($_[0],-1) eq "\012"));
} # chompnl

intelligently handles tabs as well as some ANSI escape sequences (color etc)