You are viewing the version of this documentation from Perl 5.16.3. View the latest version
Handle->format_line_break_characters EXPR
$FORMAT_LINE_BREAK_CHARACTERS
$:

The current set of characters after which a string may be broken to fill continuation fields (starting with ^) in a format. The default is " \n-", to break on a space, newline, or a hyphen.

Mnemonic: a "colon" in poetry is a part of a line.