Python
import textwrap

text = "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. " * 3

# Wrap into a list of lines (width in characters)
lines = textwrap.wrap(text, width=40)

# Wrap and rejoin into a single string with newlines
wrapped = textwrap.fill(text, width=40)

print(wrapped)

Progress:

• Identify the goal: list of lines (wrap), single string (fill), truncation (shorten), whitespace normalization (dedent), or adding prefixes (indent)
• Choose the right function for that goal
• Configure relevant keyword arguments (width, prefixes, break behavior)
• Apply to input text
• Verify output formatting (line lengths, indentation, no unwanted whitespace)

Function selection guide

Key options (for wrap/fill/TextWrapper)

• width (default 70) — max line length
• initial_indent / subsequent_indent — string prepended to first/later lines
• break_long_words (default True) — split words longer than width
• break_on_hyphens (default True) — allow breaking at hyphens
• replace_whitespace (default True) — collapse all whitespace to single spaces
• drop_whitespace (default True) — strip leading/trailing whitespace per line
• max_lines — truncate output, adding a placeholder (default ' [...]') on the last line
• tabsize — expand tabs to this many spaces before processing (default 8)

Example 1: Wrapping paragraph for terminal output Input:

Python
textwrap.fill("This is a very long line of text that needs wrapping for a narrow terminal.", width=30)

Output:

This is a very long line of
text that needs wrapping for
a narrow terminal.

Example 2: Dedenting a triple-quoted string Input:

Python
text = """
    def foo():
        return 1
    """
print(textwrap.dedent(text))

Output:

def foo():
    return 1

Example 3: Indenting with a prefix (e.g., for quoting/logging) Input:

Python
textwrap.indent("line one\nline two", "> ")

Output:

> line one
> line two

Example 4: Shortening text with placeholder Input:

Python
textwrap.shorten("The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", width=25)

Output:

The quick brown fox [...]

Example 5: Reusable wrapper for hanging indent Input:

Python
wrapper = textwrap.TextWrapper(width=40, initial_indent="- ", subsequent_indent="  ")
print(wrapper.fill("This is a bullet point that wraps onto multiple lines nicely."))

Output:

- This is a bullet point that wraps
  onto multiple lines nicely.