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 only if no file operands are  specified;  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  IEEE Std 1003.1-2001,  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

COPYRIGHT

       Portions  of  this  text  are  reprinted  and  reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std
       1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Information Technology  --  Portable  Operating  System
       Interface  (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 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 .