PICKY(1)                  User Commands                  PICKY(1)

NAME
       picky - plain ASCII text file validation tool.

SYNOPSIS
       picky [[options][inputfile]]...

DESCRIPTION
       Many parts of UNIX-like systems depend on plain ASCII text
       files.  picky checks input files which are supposed to  be
       plain ASCII text files for violation errors of one or more
       rules and reports them to standard output.  It  reads  and
       checks  standard  input  if either given no file names, or
       else the file name -.

OPTIONS
       -      Input from stdin: default if no inputfile.

       --     End of option arguments.

       -8     High 8-bit characters (128..255) okay.

       -a<n>  Maximum errors to abort file is n (10).

       -a     No maximum errors to abort file.

       -A<n>  Maximum error files to exit is n (10).

       -A     No maximum error files to exit.

       -b     Backspace anywhere okay.

       -c     CRLF line endings only.

       -d     DOS/Windows mode. Implies -c and -f.

       -e<n>  Maximum errors logged is n (10).

       -e     No maximum errors.

       -f     Missing final LF okay.

       -h     Print brief help message and exit.

       -o<n>  ASCII code n anywhere okay.

       -o     ASCII nulls anywhere okay.

       -q     Quiet mode. No standard output produced.

       -r     Carriage Return anywhere okay.

       -s     Trailing white space not okay.

       -t<n>  Tab spacing width is n (8).

       -t     Tab anywhere not okay.

       -u     UNIX mode. LF line ending always (default).

       -v     Verbose mode (repeat for more verbose).

       -V     Print version and exit.

       -w<n>  Maximum line width is n (80).

       -w     No maximum line width.

EXAMPLES
       Validate some text files  in  a  directory.  Consider  any
       trailing  spaces at the end of a line as an error. Any tab
       characters are considered an error except in Makefile.

       $ picky -s Makefile -t *.txt *.tex *.html

       Validate DOS and UNIX files with  possible  UTF-8  charac-
       ters.

       $ picky -8 -d dos*.txt *.htm -u unix*.txt *.html

UNICODE
       Note  that  picky  knows nothing about the various Unicode
       text file encodings.  It would be nice, but difficult,  to
       allow  it  to validate Unicode text files as well as ASCII
       text files.  However, using option -8  allows  some  UTF-8
       encoded  Unicode  text  files to be valid even if they are
       not really checked for valid Unicode,  and  even  if  line
       width  and  column calculations will be inaccurate in such
       cases.

RETURN VALUE
       picky returns a 0 (zero)  exit  status  if  all  specified
       files it can read are okay, otherwise 1. It ignores direc-
       tories. It skips files that  are  unreadable  although  it
       outputs an appropriate message.

VERSION
       This man page describes version 2.6 of picky.

THANKS
       Suzanne Skinner for first version.
       Landon Curt Noll for suggestions.

AUTHOR
       Michael Somos <michael.somos@gmail.com>

HOME PAGE
       https://grail.eecs.csuohio.edu/~somos/picky.html

SEE ALSO
       file(1)

picky 2.6                    Sep 2022                    PICKY(1)