Separator

Separator

Print a separator line

Module type	separator
Default order	2 — only used by --gen-config
Module source	src/modules/separator/separator.c
Detection source	—

Prints a horizontal rule. By default its length matches the title above it, so it underlines user@my-pc exactly:

user@my-pc
---------------------

The rule is built from the string option (default -) repeated to fill the title's width. If string is longer than one character, whole copies are written while they still fit and the last copy is cut mid-string at a UTF-8 character boundary.

This module has no key, no icon and no format string — see Pitfalls.

Platform support

Platform	Implementation	Notes
Everywhere	src/modules/separator/separator.c, src/logo/logo.c	Platform independent

There is no detection layer at all. The only OS-dependent input is the platform struct used to size the rule.

Configuration

Option	Type	Default	Description
string	string	"-"	The text to repeat. Any length; multi-byte UTF-8 is handled.
times	integer	0	How many times to repeat string. 0 means “auto”, i.e. match the title width.
outputColor	color	–	Overrides display.color.output.
condition	object	–	See Configuration.

That is the complete list. key, keyColor, keyIcon, keyWidth and format are not accepted by this module; writing them is an unknown key (see Pitfalls).

times counts repetitions of the whole string, not characters:

{ "modules": [ { "type": "separator", "string": "=-=", "times": 3 } ] }

=-==-==-=

Format string

None. fastfetch -h separator-format has nothing to show, and format is an invalid key here.

JSON output

The module has no JSON representation:

{ "type": "Separator", "error": "Unsupported for JSON format" }

--structure separator --format json therefore produces an error object rather than a result.

Examples

{
  "modules": [
    { "type": "title" },
    { "type": "separator" },
    { "type": "os" }
  ]
}

A fixed-length rule instead of the automatic one:

{ "type": "separator", "string": "─", "times": 40 }

A colored rule:

{ "type": "separator", "outputColor": "yellow" }

Pitfalls

• times is range-checked, and -1 is rejected. An out-of-range value prints Property 'times' must be a non-negative integer no greater than 4294967295 and the module falls back to the automatic width, so a bad value no longer floods the terminal. Use 0 for “auto” — a negative number is not a shorthand for it.

• The automatic width follows the unformatted title. It is computed from the user name and host name, not from the title's actual output. If you give Title a format, the separator no longer matches:

  a very long formatted title indeed
  ---------------------
  

• The automatic width depends on the host name being measured in bytes. The host name contributes its byte length (or the byte index of the first .), while the user name contributes its display width. A host name with non-ASCII characters therefore yields a rule that is too long.

• Printing a separator without a title uses a non-FQDN host name. The FQDN flag is stored by the Title module as a side effect; if Title does not run, the separator assumes the short form.

• outputColor applies to the rule only. There is no key to color, so keyColor is meaningless here.

• Unknown keys are silent. {"type": "separator", "key": "-"} is accepted, ignored and produces no message unless display.showErrors is enabled — see Global.

• length is a renamed option and only prints a deprecation notice. It is still accepted so that old configs are not silently meaningless:

  Separator: The option length has been renamed to times.
  

  The rule is then rendered with the default times, i.e. auto width.

Implementation

ffPrintSeparator() (src/modules/separator/separator.c) runs in four steps:

1. ffLogoPrintLine() — advances the logo so the rule lines up beside an image logo rather than overwriting it.
2. ffPrintColor(&options->outputColor) when the color is set and not in --pipe mode.
3. The body. There are two paths:
   • times > 0: ffPrintCharTimes() when string is a single byte, otherwise the string is fputs-ed times times. Note the single-byte fast path uses string.chars[0], so a multi-byte string with times > 0 repeats whole strings and cannot cut mid-character.
   • times == 0 (auto): titleLength is 1 + ffUtf8StrWidth(userName) + (titleFqdn ? hostName.length : index-of-first-dot(hostName)). Whole copies of string are written while remaining >= wcsLength; the remainder is then filled by walking ffUtf8CharLenWidth() character by character and stopping once the remaining display width would be exceeded. For a single-byte string this reduces to ffPrintCharTimes(string[0], titleLength).
4. A reset (when colored) and putchar('\n').

options->times goes through the shared ffJsonConfigParseUInt32() helper, which reads the value with yyjson_get_sint() and rejects anything outside [0, 4294967295]. The helper exists because yyjson_get_uint(), the obvious choice, also accepts the signed subtype and reinterprets its bits: a bare (uint32_t) yyjson_get_uint(val) turns -1 into UINT32_MAX, and ffPrintCharTimes() — which lives in src/common/impl/printing.c, writes in blocks and takes the count as-is — would then emit 4 294 967 295 characters. The bound is enforced at parse time only, so ffPrintCharTimes() itself will still write whatever it is handed. cpuusage, netio and diskio use the same helper for their waitTime, where the same mistake used to mean a sleep of roughly 50 days.

The schema documents times as minimum: 0 with no upper bound, so the runtime is slightly stricter than the schema here: a value above 4294967295 validates but is rejected at runtime.