Re: banner

[Eric Blake]

> On my system there are two banner programs available.  One is the SysV
> banner and the other is the BSD banner.  The SysV prints large font
> text horizontally as for marking a screen or a printout.

Cygwin's banner is a SysV knock-off, licensed under GPL (example best
viewed in a fixed-width font):

$ banner --help
banner version 1.0
  Prints a string enlarged as a banner on the screen.

Usage: banner A string to print...

General options
  -c, --char=X       use character <X>
  -w, --width=80     set display width to <80> 

Help options
  -?, --help         Show this help message
  --usage            Display brief usage message
  --version          Display version information
  --license          Display licensing information

This version works the same way as System V'S banner does:
The banner text is displayed horizontally.
$ banner "foo  bar" blah
                                                                
                                                                
    XX                                   XX                     
   X                                      X                     
   X                                      X                     
  XXXX    XXXXX   XXXXX                   XXXXX   XXXX   XXX XX 
   X     X     X X     X                  X    X      X    XX  X
   X     X     X X     X                  X    X  XXXXX    X    
   X     X     X X     X                  X    X X    X    X    
   X     X     X X     X                  X    X X    X    X    
  XXXX    XXXXX   XXXXX                  XXXXXX   XXXX X XXXXX  
                                                                
                                                                
                                
                                
 XX        XX            XX     
  X         X             X     
  X         X             X     
  XXXXX     X     XXXX    X XX  
  X    X    X         X   XX  X 
  X    X    X     XXXXX   X   X 
  X    X    X    X    X   X   X 
  X    X    X    X    X   X   X 
 XXXXXX   XXXXX   XXXX X XXX XXX
                                

$

> Could you say a few words about why this program benefit from being
> included in coreutils?

I can't speak for the original poster, but if an explanation for
including banner is provided, coreutils should probably also
improve it to add an option to select between horizontal (default,
SysV style) and vertical (BSD style).  One argument for inclusion
might be that banner is a formatting utility, and coreutils already
includes other formatting utilities, such as fmt(1), that are not
standardized by POSIX but have appeared in traditional
environments.

Also, the original poster might get a lot further in the request if
you posted the source code and documentation along with your
request for inclusion.

--
Eric Blake