Linux, Unix, /etc

Danger Will Robinson! You are now entering a condescending Unix user zone!

Review of Unix Text Processing

Unix was and is the platform for text processing. It has sometimes been criticised for its assumption that everything can be handled by simple type-less files — the "bag o' bytes" approach. For text processing, this approach brings many advantages and no disadvantages.

"An ideal text-processing environment for serious writers should provide tools for saving and managing multiple drafts on disk, not just on paper. It should allow the writer to

work on documents of any length;
save multiple versions of a file;
save part of the buffer into a file for later use;
switch easily between multiple files;
insert the contents of an existing file into the buffer;
summarise the differences between two versions of a document.
"

Several chapters deal with getting the most out of Unix in general. All the usual suspects are rounded up: shell programming, sed, awk, etc, etc. Sadly, yet again, no mention of m4. But despite that flaw, these chapters together a really sound introduction to the Unix way of doing things. Two chapters, Ch. 3, Learning vi, and Ch. 7, Advanced Editing, cover the inimitable vi text editor. According to Tim O'Reilly, this book contains the full text of the early editions of "Learning the vi editor" (the current, 6th, edition is greatly expanded).

A great feature sof the book is that it shows how powerful the old Unix typesetting tools still are. Groff can do so much, if you take the time to learn how — and this book can show you. The chapters dedicated to it are a good tutorial for roff and associated tools (mm and me macro packages, eqn, tbl), and also manages to teach something about typesetting in general.

Conclusion

This is a rather old book, quite dated in places, out of print and not likely to see another print run. Nevertheless, it remains a useful resource. Its coverage of the vi editor is particularly valuable. It comes, therefore, highly recommended. Unix Text Processing, along with Unix Power Tools, is the O'Reilly book. If you can find it second-hand, snap it up. If you can't, the pdf will do to be going on with; and you might pester O'Reilly to reprint it!

How To Get This Book

This book is out of print, but I've included the publishing details below anyway. The book is available, in pdf (one big file or split) and pbm (ditto) formats, from the O'Reilly ftp archive, and I really would recommend taking a look. Perhaps if enough of us pester them, they will after all do a revision or even just a reprint?

$ ftp ftp.ora.com
ftp> cd /pub/utp
ftp> ls
total 504590
drwxrwsr-x  32 61           512 Sep 12  2001 pbm
-rw-rw-r—   1 100      38056077 Sep 12  2001 pbm.tar.gz
drwxrwxr-x   2 100        14336 Sep 12  2001 pdf
-rw-rw-r—   1 100      220112017 Sep 11  2001 pdf.tar.gz

UPDATE: Well, while O'Reilly have no plans for a reprint, there is a project underway to re-create the book — have a look at http://home.alltel.net/kollar/utp/.

Title: Unix Text Processing
Author: Dale Dougherty & Tim O'Reilly
Publisher: Hayden Books
ISBN: 0-672-46291-5
Price: ?
Pages: 665
Date: 1987

1 From Typewriters to Word Processors

2 UNIX Fundamentals

3 Learning vi

4 nroff and troff

5 The ms Macros

6 The mm Macors

7 Advanced Editing

8 Formatting with tbl

9 Typesetting Equations with eqn

10 Drawing Pictures

11 A Miscellany of UNIX Commands

12 Let the Computer Do the Dirty Work

13 The awk Programming Language

14 Writing nroff and troff Macros

15 Figures and Special Effects

16 What[rq]s in a Macro Package?

17 An Extended ms Macro Package

18 Putting It All Together

Appendices

A Editor Command Summary

B Formatter Command Summary

C Shell Command Summary

D Fromat of troff Width Tables

E Comparing mm and ms

F The format Macros

G Selected Readings

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