groffer
display groff files and man pages on X and tty
see also :
groff - troff - grog - man - gxditview - xditview - evince - gs - xdvi - epiphany - firefox - less - gzip - bzip2
Synopsis
groffer
[option ...]
[--] [filespec ...]
groffer
-h|--help
groffer
-v|--version
add an example, a script, a trick and tips
examples
The usage of groffer is very easy. Usually, it is just
called with a file name or man page. The following
examples, however, show that groffer has much more fancy
capabilities.
sh# groffer /usr/local/share/doc/groff/meintro.ms.gz
Decompress, format and display the compressed file
meintro.ms.gz in the directory
/usr/local/share/doc/groff, using the standard viewer
gxditview as graphical viewer when in X Window, or
the less(1) pager program when not in X Window.
sh# groffer groff
If the file ./groff exists use it as input. Otherwise
interpret the argument as a search for the man page
named groff in the smallest possible
man section, being section 1 in this case.
sh# groffer man:groff
search for the man page of groff even when the
file ./groff exists.
sh# groffer groff.7
sh# groffer 7 groff
search the man page of groff in
man section 7. This section search works only
for a digit or a single character from a small set.
sh# groffer fb.modes
If the file ./fb.modes does not exist interpret this as a
search for the man page of fb.modes. As the
extension modes is not a single character in classical
section style the argument is not split to a search for
fb.
sh# groffer groff ’troff(1)’ man:roff
The arguments that are not existing files are looked-up as the
following man pages: groff (automatic search,
should be found in man section 1), troff
(in section 1), and roff (in the section with the
lowest number, being 7 in this case). The quotes around
’troff(1)’ are necessary because the parentheses are
special shell characters; escaping them with a backslash
character \( and \) would be possible, too. The
formatted files are concatenated and displayed in one piece.
sh# LANG=de groffer --man --www --www-viewer=galeon ls
Retrieve the German man page (language de) for
the ls program, decompress it, format it to html
format (www mode) and view the result in the web
browser galeon. The option --man guarantees that
the man page is retrieved, even when a local file
ls exists in the actual directory.
sh# groffer --source ’man:roff(7)’
Get the man page called roff in
man section 7, decompress it, and print its
unformatted content, its source code.
sh# groffer --de-p --in --ap
This is a set of abbreviated arguments, it is determined as
sh# groffer --debug-params --intermediate-output --apropos
sh# cat file.gz | groffer -Z -mfoo
The file file.gz is sent to standard input, this is
decompressed, and then this is transported to the groff
intermediate output mode without post-processing
(groff option -Z), using macro package foo
(groff option -m).
sh# echo ’\f[CB]WOW!’ |
> groffer --x --bg red --fg yellow --geometry 200x100 -
Display the word WOW! in a small window in
constant-width
bold font, using color yellow on red background.
description
The
groffer program is the easiest way to use
groff(1). It can display arbitrary documents written
in the groff language, see groff(7), or other
roff languages, see roff(7), that are
compatible to the original troff language. It finds
and runs all necessary groff preprocessors, such as
chem.
The
groffer program also includes many of the features
for finding and displaying the Unix manual pages
(man pages), such that it can be used as a
replacement for a man(1) program. Moreover,
compressed files that can be handled by gzip(1) or
bzip2(1) are decompressed on-the-fly.
The normal
usage is quite simple by supplying a file name or name of a
man page without further options. But the option
handling has many possibilities for creating special
behaviors. This can be done either in configuration files,
with the shell environment variable
$GROFFER_OPT, or on the
command line.
The output can
be generated and viewed in several different ways available
for groff. This includes the groff native
X Window viewer gxditview(1), each
Postcript, pdf, or dvi display program,
a web browser by generating html in
www mode, or several text modes in
text terminals.
Most of the
options that must be named when running groff
directly are determined automatically for groffer,
due to the internal usage of the grog(1) program. But
all parts can also be controlled manually by arguments.
Several file
names can be specified on the command line arguments. They
are transformed into a single document in the normal way of
groff.
Option handling
is done in GNU style. Options and file names can be mixed
freely. The option ’--’
closes the option handling, all following arguments are
treated as file names. Long options can be abbreviated in
several ways.
compatibility
The groffer program is written in Perl, the Perl version
during writing was v5.8.8.
groffer provides its own parser for command line arguments
that is compatible to both POSIX getopts(1) and GNU
getopt(1). It can handle option arguments and file names
containing white space and a large set of special characters. The
following standard types of options are supported.
•
The option consisting of a single minus - refers to
standard input.
•
A single minus followed by characters refers to a single
character option or a combination thereof; for example, the
groffer short option combination -Qmfoo is
equivalent to -Q -m foo.
•
Long options are options with names longer than one character;
they are always preceded by a double minus. An option argument
can either go to the next command line argument or be appended
with an equal sign to the argument; for example,
--long=arg is equivalent to --long arg.
•
An argument of -- ends option parsing; all further command
line arguments are interpreted as filespec parameters,
i.e. file names or constructs for searching
man pages).
•
All command line arguments that are neither options nor option
arguments are interpreted as filespec parameters and
stored until option parsing has finished. For example, the
command line
sh# groffer file1 -a -o arg file2
is equivalent to
sh# groffer -a -o arg -- file1 file2
The free mixing of options and filespec parameters follows
the GNU principle. That does not fulfill the strange option
behavior of POSIX that ends option processing as soon as the
first non-option argument has been reached. The end of option
processing can be forced by the option ’--’ anyway.
configuration files
The groffer program can be preconfigured by two
configuration files.
/etc/groff/groffer.conf
System-wide configuration file for groffer.
$HOME/.groff/groffer.conf
User-specific configuration file for groffer, where
$HOME denotes the user’s home directory.
This file is called after the system-wide configuration file to
enable overriding by the user.
Both files are handled for the configuration, but the
configuration file in /etc comes first; it is overwritten
by the configuration file in the home directory; both
configuration files are overwritten by the environment variable
$GROFFER_OPT; everything is
overwritten by the command line arguments.
The configuration files contain options that should be called as
default for every groffer run. These options are written
in lines such that each contains either a long option, a short
option, or a short option cluster; each with or without an
argument. So each line with configuration information starts with
a minus character ’-’; a line with a long option starts
with two minus characters ’--’, a line with a short option
or short option cluster starts with a single minus ’-’.
The option names in the configuration files may not be
abbreviated, they must be exact.
The argument for a long option can be separated from the option
name either by an equal sign ’=’ or by whitespace, i.e.
one or several space or tab characters. An argument for a short
option or short option cluster can be directly appended to the
option name or separated by whitespace. The end of an argument is
the end of the line. It is not allowed to use a shell environment
variable in an option name or argument.
It is not necessary to use quotes in an option or argument,
except for empty arguments. An empty argument can be provided by
appending a pair of quotes to the separating equal sign or
whitespace; with a short option, the separator can be omitted as
well. For a long option with a separating equal sign ’=’,
the pair of quotes can be omitted, thus ending the line with the
separating equal sign. All other quote characters are cancelled
internally.
In the configuration files, arbitrary whitespace is allowed at
the beginning of each line, it is just ignored. Each whitespace
within a line is replaced by a single space character ’ ’
internally.
All lines of the configuration lines that do not start with a
minus character are ignored, such that comments starting with
’#’ are possible. So there are no shell commands in the
configuration files.
As an example, consider the following configuration file that can
be used either in /etc/groff/groffer.conf or
~/.groff/groffer.conf.
# groffer configuration file
#
# groffer options that are used in each call of groffer
--foreground=DarkBlue
--resolution=100
--x-viewer=gxditview -geometry 900x1200
--pdf-viewer xpdf -Z 150
The lines starting with # are just ignored, so they act as
command lines. This configuration sets four groffer
options (the lines starting with ’-’). This has the
following effects:
•
Use a text color of DarkBlue in all viewers that support
this, such as gxditview.
•
Use a resolution of 100dpi in all viewers that support
this, such as gxditview. By this, the default device in
x mode is set to X100.
•
Force gxditview(1) as the x-mode viewer using the
geometry option for setting the width to 900px and the
height to 1200px. This geometry is suitable for a
resolution of 100dpi.
•
Use xpdf(1) as the pdf-mode viewer with the
argument -Z 150.
copying
Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2004-2006, 2009-2012
Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This file is part of groffer, which is part of
groff, a free software project. You can redistribute it
and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation,
either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later
version.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with groff, see the files COPYING and
LICENSE in the top directory of the groff source
package. Or read the man page gpl(1). You can
also visit <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
decompression
The program has a decompression facility. If standard input or a
file that was retrieved from the command line parameters is
compressed with a format that is supported by either
gzip(1) or bzip2(1) it is decompressed on-the-fly.
This includes the GNU .gz, .bz2, and the
traditional .Z compression. The program displays the
concatenation of all decompressed input in the sequence that was
specified on the command line.
environment
The groffer program supports many system variables, most
of them by courtesy of other programs. All environment variables
of groff(1) and GNU man(1) and some standard system
variables are honored.
Native groffer Variables
$GROFFER_OPT
Store options for a run of groffer. The options specified
in this variable are overridden by the options given on the
command line. The content of this variable is run through the
shell builtin ’eval’; so arguments containing white-space or
special shell characters should be quoted. Do not forget to
export this variable, otherwise it does not exist during the run
of groffer.
System Variables
The following variables have a special meaning for
groffer.
$DISPLAY
If this variable is set this indicates that the X Window
system is running. Testing this variable decides on whether
graphical or text output is generated. This variable should not
be changed by the user carelessly, but it can be used to start
the graphical groffer on a remote X Window terminal.
For example, depending on your system, groffer can be
started on the second monitor by the command
sh# DISPLAY=:0.1 groffer what.ever &
$LC_ALL
$LC_MESSAGES
$LANG
If one of these variables is set (in the above sequence), its
content is interpreted as the locale, the language to be used,
especially when retrieving man pages. A locale name
is typically of the form
language[_territory[.codeset[@modifier]]],
where language is an ISO 639 language code,
territory is an ISO 3166 country code, and codeset
is a character set or encoding identifier like ISO-8859-1 or
UTF-8; see setlocale(3). The locale values C and POSIX
stand for the default, i.e. the man page directories
without a language prefix. This is the same behavior as when all
3 variables are unset.
$PAGER
This variable can be used to set the pager for the tty output.
For example, to disable the use of a pager completely set this
variable to the cat(1) program
sh# PAGER=cat groffer anything
$PATH
All programs within the groffer script are called without
a fixed path. Thus this environment variable determines the set
of programs used within the run of groffer.
Groff Variables
The groffer program internally calls groff, so all
environment variables documented in groff(1) are
internally used within groffer as well. The following
variable has a direct meaning for the groffer program.
$GROFF_TMPDIR
If the value of this variable is an existing, writable directory,
groffer uses it for storing its temporary files, just as
groff does. See the groff(1) man page for more
details on the location of temporary files.
Man Variables
Parts of the functionality of the man program were
implemented in groffer; support for all environment
variables documented in man(1) was added to
groffer, but the meaning was slightly modified due to the
different approach in groffer; but the user interface is
the same. The man environment variables can be overwritten
by options provided with
$MANOPT, which in turn is
overwritten by the command line.
$EXTENSION
Restrict the search for man pages to files having
this extension. This is overridden by option --extension;
see there for details.
$MANOPT
This variable contains options as a preset for man(1). As
not all of these are relevant for groffer only the
essential parts of its value are extracted. The options specified
in this variable overwrite the values of the other environment
variables that are specific to man. All options specified
in this variable are overridden by the options given on the
command line.
$MANPATH
If set, this variable contains the directories in which the
man page trees are stored. This is overridden by
option --manpath.
$MANSECT
If this is a colon separated list of section names, the search
for man pages is restricted to those manual sections
in that order. This is overridden by option --sections.
$SYSTEM
If this is set to a comma separated list of names these are
interpreted as man page trees for different operating
systems. This variable can be overwritten by option
--systems; see there for details.
The environment variable $MANROFFSEQ is
ignored by groffer because the necessary preprocessors are
determined automatically.
man page searching
The default behavior of groffer is to first test whether a
file parameter represents a local file; if it is not an existing
file name, it is assumed to represent the name of a
man page. The following options can be used to
determine whether the arguments should be handled as file name or
man page arguments.
--man
forces to interpret all file parameters as filespecs for
searching man pages.
--no-man
--local-file
disable the man searching; so only local files are
displayed.
If neither a local file nor a man page was retrieved
for some file parameter a warning is issued on standard error,
but processing is continued.
Search Algorithm
Let us now assume that a man page should be searched.
The groffer program provides a search facility for
man pages. All long options, all environment
variables, and most of the functionality of the GNU man(1)
program were implemented. The search algorithm shall determine
which file is displayed for a given man page. The
process can be modified by options and environment variables.
The only man action that is omitted in groffer are
the preformatted man pages, also called
cat pages. With the excellent performance of the
actual computers, the preformatted man pages aren’t
necessary any longer. Additionally, groffer is a
roff program; it wants to read roff source files
and format them itself.
The algorithm for retrieving the file for a man page
needs first a set of directories. This set starts with the
so-called man path that is modified later on by
adding names of operating system and language. This
arising set is used for adding the section directories which
contain the man page files.
The man path is a list of directories that are
separated by colon. It is generated by the following methods.
•
The environment variable $MANPATH can be
set.
•
It can be read from the arguments of the environment variable
$MANOPT.
•
The man path can be manually specified by using the
option --manpath. An empty argument disables the
man page searching.
•
When no man path was set the manpath(1)
program is tried to determine one.
•
If this does not work a reasonable default path from
$PATH is determined.
We now have a starting set of directories. The first way to
change this set is by adding names of operating systems.
This assumes that man pages for several operating
systems are installed. This is not always true. The names of
such operating systems can be provided by 3 methods.
•
The environment variable $SYSTEM has the
lowest precedence.
•
This can be overridden by an option in
$MANOPT.
•
This again is overridden by the command line option
--systems.
Several names of operating systems can be given by
appending their names, separated by a comma.
The man path is changed by appending each
system name as subdirectory at the end of each directory
of the set. No directory of the man path set is kept.
But if no system name is specified the
man path is left unchanged.
After this, the actual set of directories can be changed by
language information. This assumes that there exist
man pages in different languages. The wanted
language can be chosen by several methods.
•
Enviroment variable $LANG.
•
This is overridden by
$LC_MESSAGES.
•
This is overridden by
$LC_ALL.
•
This can be overridden by providing an option in
$MANOPT.
•
All these environment variables are overridden by the command
line option --locale.
The default language can be specified by specifying one of
the pseudo-language parameters C or POSIX. This is like deleting
a formerly given language information. The
man pages in the default language are usually
in English.
Of course, the language name is determined by man.
In GNU man, it is specified in the POSIX 1003.1 based
format:
<language>[_<territory>[.<character-set>[,<version>]]],
but the two-letter code in <language> is sufficient
for most purposes. If for a complicated language
formulation no man pages are found groffer
searches the country part consisting of these first two
characters as well.
The actual directory set is copied thrice. The language
name is appended as subdirectory to each directory in the first
copy of the actual directory set (this is only done when a
language information is given). Then the 2-letter abbreviation of
the language name is appended as subdirectories to the
second copy of the directory set (this is only done when the
given language name has more than 2 letters). The third copy of
the directory set is kept unchanged (if no language
information is given this is the kept directory set). These
maximally 3 copies are appended to get the new directory set.
We now have a complete set of directories to work with. In each
of these directories, the man files are separated in
sections. The name of a section is represented by a
single character, a digit between 1 and 9, or the
character o or n, in this order.
For each available section, a subdirectory
man<section> exists containing all man
files for this section, where <section> is a
single character as described before. Each man file in a
section directory has the form
man<section>/<name>.<section>[<extension>][.<compression>],
where <extension> and <compression> are
optional. <name> is the name of the
man page that is also specified as filespec argument
on the command line.
The extension is an addition to the section. This postfix
acts like a subsection. An extension occurs only in the
file name, not in name of the section subdirectory. It can
be specified on the command line.
On the other hand, the compression is just an information
on how the file is compressed. This is not important for the
user, such that it cannot be specified on the command line.
There are 4 methods to specify a section on the command
line:
•
Environment variable $MANSECT
•
Command line option --sections
•
Appendix to the name argument in the form
<name>.<section>
•
Preargument before the name argument in the form
<section> <name>
It is also possible to specify several sections by
appending the single characters separated by colons. One can
imagine that this means to restrict the man page
search to only some sections. The multiple sections
are only possible for $MANSECT and
--sections.
If no section is specified all sections are
searched one after the other in the given order, starting with
section 1, until a suitable file is found.
There are 4 methods to specify an extension on the command
line. But it is not necessary to provide the whole extension
name, some abbreviation is good enough in most cases.
•
Environment variable $EXTENSION
•
Command line option --extension
•
Appendix to the <name>.<section> argument in
the form <name>.<section><extension>
•
Preargument before the name argument in the form
<section><extension> <name>
For further details on man page searching, see
man(1).
Examples of man files
/usr/share/man/man1/groff.1
This is an uncompressed file for the man page groff
in section 1. It can be called by
sh# groffer groff
No section is specified here, so all sections
should be searched, but as section 1 is searched
first this file will be found first. The file name is composed of
the following components. /usr/share/man must be part of
the man path; the subdirectory man1/ and the
part .1 stand for the section; groff is the
name of the man page.
/usr/local/share/man/man7/groff.7.gz
The file name is composed of the following components.
/usr/local/share/man must be part of the
man path; the subdirectory man7/ and the part
.7 stand for the section; groff is the name
of the man page; the final part .gz stands for
a compression with gzip(1). As the section is not
the first one it must be specified as well. This can be done by
one of the following commands.
sh# groffer groff.7
sh# groffer 7 groff
sh# groffer --sections=7 groff
/usr/local/man/man1/ctags.1emacs21.bz2
Here /usr/local/man must be in man path; the
subdirectory man1/ and the file name part .1 stand
for section 1; the name of the man page
is ctags; the section has an extension emacs21; and
the file is compressed as .bz2 with bzip2(1). The
file can be viewed with one of the following commands
sh# groffer ctags.1e
sh# groffer 1e ctags
sh# groffer --extension=e --sections=1 ctags
where e works as an abbreviation for the extension emacs21.
/usr/man/linux/de/man7/man.7.Z
The directory /usr/man is now part of the
man path; then there is a subdirectory for an
operating system name linux/; next comes a
subdirectory de/ for the German language; the
section names man7 and .7 are known so far;
man is the name of the man page; and .Z
signifies the compression that can be handled by gzip(1).
We want now show how to provide several values for some options.
That is possible for sections and operating system
names. So we use as sections 5 and 7 and as
system names linux and aix. The command is
then
sh#
groffer --locale=de --sections=5:7 --systems=linux,aix man
sh#
LANG=de MANSECT=5:7 SYSTEM=linux,aix groffer man
option details
The groffer program can usually be run with very few
options. But for special purposes, it supports many options.
These can be classified in 5 option classes.
All short options of groffer are compatible with the short
options of groff(1). All long options of groffer
are compatible with the long options of man(1).
Arguments for long option names can be abbreviated in several
ways. First, the argument is checked whether it can be prolonged
as is. Furthermore, each minus sign - is considered as a
starting point for a new abbreviation. This leads to a set of
multiple abbreviations for a single argument. For example,
--de-n-f can be used as an abbreviation for
--debug-not-func, but --de-n works as well. If the
abbreviation of the argument leads to several resulting options
an error is raised.
These abbreviations are only allowed in the environment variable
$GROFFER_OPT, but not in the
configuration files. In configuration, all long options must be
exact.
groffer breaking Options
As soon as one of these options is found on the command line it
is executed, printed to standard output, and the running
groffer is terminated thereafter. All other arguments are
ignored.
-h | --help
Print help information with a short explanation of options to
standard output.
-v | --version
Print version information to standard output.
groffer Mode Options
The display mode and the viewer programs are determined by these
options. If none of these mode and viewer options is specified
groffer tries to find a suitable display mode
automatically. The default modes are mode pdf, mode
ps, mode html, mode x, and mode dvi in
X Window with different viewers and mode tty with
device latin1 under less on a terminal; other modes
are tested if the programs for the main default mode do not
exist.
In X Window, many programs create their own window when
called. groffer can run these viewers as an independent
program in the background. As this does not work in text mode on
a terminal (tty) there must be a way to know which viewers are
X Window graphical programs. The groffer script has a
small set of information on some viewer names. If a viewer
argument of the command-line chooses an element that is kept as
X Window program in this list it is treated as a viewer that
can run in the background. All other, unknown viewer calls are
not run in the background.
For each mode, you are free to choose whatever viewer you want.
That need not be some graphical viewer suitable for this mode.
There is a chance to view the output source; for example, the
combination of the options --mode=ps and
--ps-viewer=less shows the content of the
Postscript output, the source code, with the pager
less.
--auto
Equivalent to --mode=auto.
--default
Reset all configuration from previously processed command line
options to the default values. This is useful to wipe out all
former options of the configuration, in
$GROFFER_OPT, and restart
option processing using only the rest of the command line.
--default-modes mode1,mode2,...
Set the sequence of modes for auto mode to the comma
separated list given in the argument. See --mode for
details on modes. Display in the default manner; actually, this
means to try the modes x, ps, and tty in
this sequence.
--dvi
Equivalent to --mode=dvi.
--dvi-viewer prog
Choose a viewer program for dvi mode. This can be a
file name or a program to be searched in
$PATH. Known X Window
dvi viewers include xdvi(1) and dvilx(1). In
each case, arguments can be provided additionally.
--groff
Equivalent to --mode=groff.
--html
Equivalent to --mode=html.
--html-viewer
Choose a web browser program for viewing in
html mode. It can be the path name of an executable
file or a program in $PATH.
In each case, arguments can be provided additionally.
--mode value
Set the display mode. The following mode values are recognized:
auto
Select the automatic determination of the display mode. The
sequence of modes that are tried can be set with the
--default-modes option. Useful for restoring the
default mode when a different mode was specified
before.
dvi
Display formatted input in a dvi viewer program. By
default, the formatted input is displayed with the xdvi(1)
program.
groff
After the file determination, switch groffer to process
the input like groff(1) would do. This disables the
groffer viewing features.
html
Translate the input into html format and display the result in a
web browser program. By default, the existence of a sequence of
standard web browsers is tested, starting with
konqueror(1) and mozilla(1). The text html viewer
is lynx(1).
pdf
Display formatted input in a PDF (Portable Document
Format) viewer program. By default, the input is formatted by
groff using the Postscript device, then it is transformed
into the PDF file format using gs(1), or ps2pdf(1).
If that’s not possible, the Postscript mode (ps) is used
instead. Finally it is displayed using different viewer programs.
pdf has a big advantage because the text is displayed
graphically and is searchable as well.
ps
Display formatted input in a Postscript viewer program. By
default, the formatted input is displayed in one of many viewer
programs.
text
Format in a groff text mode and write the result
to standard output without a pager or viewer program. The text
device, latin1 by default, can be chosen with option
-T.
tty
Format in a groff text mode and write the result
to standard output using a text pager program, even when in
X Window.
www
Equivalent to --mode=html.
x
Display the formatted input in a native roff viewer. By
default, the formatted input is displayed with the
gxditview(1) program being distributed together with
groff. But the standard X Window tool
xditview(1) can also be chosen with the option
--x-viewer. The default resolution is 75dpi, but
100dpi are also possible. The default groff device
for the resolution of 75dpi is X75-12, for
100dpi it is X100. The corresponding groff
intermediate output for the actual device is generated and
the result is displayed. For a resolution of 100dpi, the
default width of the geometry of the display program is chosen to
850dpi.
X
Equivalent to --mode=x.
The following modes do not use the groffer viewing
features. They are only interesting for advanced applications.
groff
Generate device output with plain groff without using the
special viewing features of groffer. If no device was
specified by option -T the groff default ps
is assumed.
source
Output the roff source code of the input files without further
processing.
--pdf
Equivalent to --mode=pdf.
--pdf-viewer prog
Choose a viewer program for pdf mode. This can be a
file name or a program to be searched in
$PATH; arguments can be
provided additionally.
--ps
Equivalent to --mode=ps.
--ps-viewer prog
Choose a viewer program for ps mode. This can be a
file name or a program to be searched in
$PATH. Common Postscript
viewers include gv(1), ghostview(1), and
gs(1), In each case, arguments can be provided
additionally.
--source
Equivalent to --mode=source.
--text
Equivalent to --mode=text.
--to-stdout
The file for the chosen mode is generated and its content is
printed to standard output. It will not be displayed in graphical
mode.
--tty
Equivalent to --mode=tty.
--tty-viewer prog
Choose a text pager for mode tty. The standard pager is
less(1). This option is equivalent to man option
--pager=prog. The option argument can be a file
name or a program to be searched in
$PATH; arguments can be
provided additionally.
--www
Equivalent to --mode=html.
--www-viewer prog
Equivalent to --html-viewer.
--X | --x
Equivalent to --mode=x.
--X-viewer | --x-viewer prog
Choose a viewer program for x mode. Suitable viewer
programs are gxditview(1) which is the default and
xditview(1). The argument can be any executable file or a
program in $PATH; arguments
can be provided additionally.
--
Signals the end of option processing; all remaining arguments are
interpreted as filespec parameters.
Besides these, groffer accepts all short options that are
valid for the groff(1) program. All non-groffer
options are sent unmodified via grog to groff. So
postprocessors, macro packages, compatibility with classical
troff, and much more can be manually specified.
Options related to groff
All short options of groffer are compatible with the short
options of groff(1). The following of groff options
have either an additional special meaning within groffer
or make sense for normal usage.
Because of the special outputting behavior of the groff
option -Z groffer was designed to be switched into
groff mode; the groffer viewing features are
disabled there. The other groff options do not switch the
mode, but allow to customize the formatting process.
--a
This generates an ascii approximation of output in the
text modes. That could be important when the text
pager has problems with control sequences in tty mode.
--m file
Add file as a groff macro file. This is useful in
case it cannot be recognized automatically.
--P opt_or_arg
Send the argument opt_or_arg as an option or option
argument to the actual groff postprocessor.
--T devname | --device
devname
This option determines groff’s output device. The most
important devices are the text output devices for referring to
the different character sets, such as ascii, utf8,
latin1, and others. Each of these arguments switches
groffer into a text mode using this device, to
mode tty if the actual mode is not a
text mode. The following devname arguments are
mapped to the corresponding groffer --mode=devname
option: dvi, html, and ps. All X*
arguments are mapped to mode x. Each other
devname argument switches to mode groff using
this device.
--X
is equivalent to groff -X. It displays the groff
intermediate output with gxditview. As the quality is
relatively bad this option is deprecated; use --X instead
because the x mode uses an X* device for a
better display.
-Z | --intermediate-output | --ditroff
Switch into groff mode and format the input with the
groff intermediate output without postprocessing; see
groff_out(5). This is equivalent to option
--ditroff of man, which can be used as well.
All other groff options are supported by groffer,
but they are just transparently transferred to groff
without any intervention. The options that are not explicitly
handled by groffer are transparently passed to
groff. Therefore these transparent options are not
documented here, but in groff(1). Due to the automatism in
groffer, none of these groff options should be
needed, except for advanced usage.
Options for man pages
--apropos
Start the apropos(1) command or facility of man(1)
for searching the filespec arguments within all
man page descriptions. Each filespec argument
is taken for search as it is; section specific parts are
not handled, such that 7 groff searches for the two
arguments 7 and groff, with a large result; for the
filespec groff.7 nothing will be found. The
language locale is handled only when the called programs
do support this; the GNU apropos and man -k do not.
The display differs from the apropos program by the
following concepts:
•
Construct a groff frame similar to a man page
to the output of apropos,
•
each filespec argument is searched on its own.
•
The restriction by --sections is handled as well,
•
wildcard characters are allowed and handled without a further
option.
--apropos-data
Show only the apropos descriptions for data documents,
these are the man(7) sections 4, 5, and
7. Direct section declarations are ignored,
wildcards are accepted.
--apropos-devel
Show only the apropos descriptions for development
documents, these are the man(7) sections 2,
3, and 9. Direct section declarations are
ignored, wildcards are accepted.
--apropos-progs
Show only the apropos descriptions for documents on
programs, these are the man(7) sections 1,
6, and 8. Direct section declarations are
ignored, wildcards are accepted.
--whatis
For each filespec argument search all
man pages and display their description — or say that
it is not a man page. This is written from anew, so
it differs from man’s whatis output by the
following concepts
•
each retrieved file name is added,
•
local files are handled as well,
•
the language and system locale is supported,
•
the display is framed by a groff output format similar to
a man page,
•
wildcard characters are allowed without a further option.
The following options were added to groffer for choosing
whether the file name arguments are interpreted as names for
local files or as a search pattern for man pages. The
default is looking up for local files.
--man
Check the non-option command line arguments (filespecs)
first on being man pages, then whether they represent
an existing file. By default, a filespec is first tested
whether it is an existing file.
--no-man | --local-file
Do not check for man pages. --local-file is
the corresponding man option.
--no-special
Disable former calls of --all, --apropos*, and
--whatis.
Long options taken over from GNU man
The long options of groffer were synchronized with the
long options of GNU man. All long options of GNU
man are recognized, but not all of these options are
important to groffer, so most of them are just ignored.
These ignored man options are --catman,
--troff, and --update.
In the following, the man options that have a special
meaning for groffer are documented.
If your system has GNU man installed the full set of long
and short options of the GNU man program can be passed via
the environment variable
$MANOPT; see man(1).
--all
In searching man pages, retrieve all suitable
documents instead of only one.
-7 | --ascii
In text modes, display ASCII translation of special
characters for critical environment. This is equivalent to
groff -mtty_char; see groff_tmac(5).
--ditroff
Produce groff intermediate output. This is equivalent to
groffer -Z.
--extension suffix
Restrict man page search to file names that have
suffix appended to their section element. For example, in
the file name /usr/share/man/man3/terminfo.3ncurses.gz the
man page extension is ncurses.
--locale language
Set the language for man pages. This has the same
effect, but overwrites
$LANG.
--location
Print the location of the retrieved files to standard error.
--no-location
Do not display the location of retrieved files; this resets a
former call to --location. This was added by
groffer.
--manpath ’dir1:dir2:...’
Use the specified search path for retrieving
man pages instead of the program defaults. If the
argument is set to the empty string "" the search for
man page is disabled.
--pager
Set the pager program in tty mode; default is
less. This is equivalent to --tty-viewer.
--sections sec1:sec2:...
Restrict searching for man pages to the given
sections, a colon-separated list.
--systems sys1,sys2,...
Search for man pages for the given operating systems;
the argument systems is a comma-separated list.
--where
Equivalent to --location.
X Window Toolkit Options
The following long options were adapted from the corresponding
X Window Toolkit options. groffer will pass them
to the actual viewer program if it is an X Window program.
Otherwise these options are ignored.
Unfortunately these options use the old style of a single minus
for long options. For groffer that was changed to the
standard with using a double minus for long options, for example,
groffer uses the option --font for the
X Window option -font.
See X(7) and the documentation on the
X Window Toolkit options for more details on these
options and their arguments.
--background color
Set the background color of the viewer window.
--bd pixels
This is equivalent to --bordercolor.
--bg color
This is equivalent to --background.
--bw pixels
This is equivalent to --borderwidth.
--bordercolor pixels
Specifies the color of the border surrounding the viewer window.
--borderwidth pixels
Specifies the width in pixels of the border surrounding the
viewer window.
--display X-display
Set the X Window display on which the viewer program shall
be started, see the X Window documentation for the syntax of
the argument.
--foreground color
Set the foreground color of the viewer window.
--fg color
This is equivalent to -foreground.
--fn font_name
This is equivalent to --font.
--font font_name
Set the font used by the viewer window. The argument is an
X Window font name.
--ft font_name
This is equivalent to --font.
--geometry size_pos
Set the geometry of the display window, that means its size and
its starting position. See X(7) for the syntax of the
argument.
--resolution value
Set X Window resolution in dpi (dots per inch) in some
viewer programs. The only supported dpi values are 75 and
100. Actually, the default resolution for groffer
is set to 75dpi. The resolution also sets the default
device in mode x.
--rv
Reverse foreground and background color of the viewer window.
--title ’some text’
Set the title for the viewer window.
--xrm ’resource’
Set X Window resource.
Options for Development
--debug
Enable all debugging options --debug-type. The
temporary files are kept and not deleted, the grog output
is printed, the name of the temporary directory is printed, the
displayed file names are printed, and the parameters are printed.
--debug-filenames
Print the names of the files and man pages that are
displayed by groffer.
--debug-grog
Print the output of all grog commands.
--debug-keep
Enable two debugging informations. Print the name of the
temporary directory and keep the temporary files, do not delete
them during the run of groffer.
--debug-params
Print the parameters, as obtained from the configuration files,
from GROFFER_OPT, and the
command line arguments.
--debug-tmpdir
Print the name of the temporary directory.
--do-nothing
This is like --version, but without the output; no viewer
is started. This makes only sense in development.
--print=text
Just print the argument to standard error. This is good for
parameter check.
-V
This is an advanced option for debugging only. Instead of
displaying the formatted input, a lot of groffer specific
information is printed to standard output:
•
the output file name in the temporary directory,
•
the display mode of the actual groffer run,
•
the display program for viewing the output with its arguments,
•
the active parameters from the config files, the arguments in
$GROFFER_OPT, and the
arguments of the command line,
•
the pipeline that would be run by the groff program, but
without executing it.
Other useful debugging options are the groff option
-Z and --mode=groff.
Filespec Arguments
A filespec parameter is an argument that is not an option
or option argument. In groffer, filespec parameters
are a file name or a template for searching
man pages. These input sources are collected and
composed into a single output file such as groff does.
The strange POSIX behavior to regard all arguments behind the
first non-option argument as filespec arguments is
ignored. The GNU behavior to recognize options even when mixed
with filespec arguments is used throughout. But, as usual,
the double minus argument -- ends the option handling and
interprets all following arguments as filespec arguments;
so the POSIX behavior can be easily adopted.
The options --apropos* have a special handling of
filespec arguments. Each argument is taken as a search
scheme of its own. Also a regexp (regular expression) can be used
in the filespec. For example, groffer --apropos ’^gro.f$’
searches groff in the man page name, while
groffer --apropos groff searches groff somewhere in
the name or description of the man pages.
All other parts of groffer, such as the normal display or
the output with --whatis have a different scheme for
filespecs. No regular expressions are used for the
arguments. The filespec arguments are handled by the
following scheme.
It is necessary to know that on each system the
man pages are sorted according to their content into
several sections. The classical man sections have a
single-character name, either a digit from 1 to 9
or one of the characters n or o.
This can optionally be followed by a string, the so-called
extension. The extension allows to store several
man pages with the same name in the same
section. But the extension is only rarely used,
usually it is omitted. Then the extensions are searched
automatically by alphabet.
In the following, we use the name section_extension for a
word that consists of a single character section name or a
section character that is followed by an extension.
Each filespec parameter can have one of the following
forms in decreasing sequence.
•
No filespec parameters means that groffer waits for
standard input. The minus option - always stands for
standard input; it can occur several times. If you want to look
up a man page called - use the argument
man:-.
•
Next a filespec is tested whether it is the path name of
an existing file. Otherwise it is assumed to be a searching
pattern for a man page.
•
man:name(section_extension),
man:name.section_extension,
name(section_extension), or
name.section_extension search the
man page name in man section and possibly
extension of section_extension.
•
Now man:name searches for a man page in
the lowest man section that has a document called
name.
•
section_extension name is a pattern of 2 arguments
that originates from a strange argument parsing of the man
program. Again, this searches the man page name with
section_extension, a combination of a section
character optionally followed by an extension.
•
We are left with the argument name which is not an
existing file. So this searches for the man page
called name in the lowest man section that has
a document for this name.
Several file name arguments can be supplied. They are mixed by
groff into a single document. Note that the set of option
arguments must fit to all of these file arguments. So they should
have at least the same style of the groff language.
option overview
breaking options
[-h | --help]
[-v | --version]
groffer mode options
[--auto] [--default]
[--default-modes mode1,mode2,...]
[--dvi] [--dvi-viewer prog]
[--groff] [--html]
[--html-viewer prog]
[--mode display_mode] [--pdf]
[--pdf-viewer prog] [--ps]
[--ps-viewer prog] [--source]
[--text] [--to-stdout] [--tty]
[--tty-viewer prog] [--www]
[--www-viewer prog]
[--x | --X]
[--x-viewer | --X-viewer prog]
options related to groff
[-T | --device device]
[-Z | --intermediate-output | --ditroff]
All further groff short options are accepted.
options for man pages
[--apropos] [--apropos-data]
[--apropos-devel] [--apropos-progs] [--man]
[--no-man] [--no-special] [--whatis]
long options taken over from GNU man
[--all] [--ascii] [--ditroff]
[--extension suffix]
[--locale language] [--local-file]
[--location | --where]
[--manpath dir1:dir2:...]
[--no-location] [--pager program]
[--sections sec1:sec2:...]
[--systems sys1,sys2,...]
[--troff-device device]
Further long options of GNU man are accepted as well.
X Window Toolkit options
[--bd | --bordercolor pixels]
[--bg | --background color]
[--bw | --borderwidth pixels]
[--display X-display]
[--fg | --foreground color]
[--fn | --ft | --font font_name]
[--geometry size_pos]
[--resolution value] [--rv]
[--title string]
[--xrm X-resource]
options for development
[--debug] [--debug-filenames] [--debug-grog]
[--debug-keep] [--debug-params]
[--debug-tmpdir] [--do-nothing]
[--print text] [-V]
filespec arguments
The filespec parameters are all arguments that are neither
an option nor an option argument. They usually mean a file name
or a man page searching scheme.
In the following, the term section_extension is used. It
means a word that consists of a man section that is
optionally followed by an extension. The name of a man
section is a single character from [1-9on], the
extension is some word. The extension is mostly
lacking.
No filespec parameters means standard input.
-
stands for standard input (can occur several times).
filename
the path name of an existing file.
man:name(section_extension)
man:name.section_extension
name(section_extension)
name.section_extension
section_extension name
search the man page name in the section with optional
extension section_extension.
man:name
man page in the lowest man section that has
name.
name
if name is not an existing file search for the
man page name in the lowest man section.
output modes
By default, the groffer program collects all input into a
single file, formats it with the groff program for a
certain device, and then chooses a suitable viewer program. The
device and viewer process in groffer is called a
mode. The mode and viewer of a running groffer
program is selected automatically, but the user can also choose
it with options. The modes are selected by option the arguments
of --mode=anymode. Additionally, each of this
argument can be specified as an option of its own, such as
anymode. Most of these modes have a viewer program, which
can be chosen by an option that is constructed like
--anymode-viewer.
Several different modes are offered, graphical modes for
X Window, text modes, and some direct
groff modes for debugging and development.
By default, groffer first tries whether x mode
is possible, then ps mode, and finally
tty mode. This mode testing sequence for
auto mode can be changed by specifying a comma
separated list of modes with the option --default-modes.
The searching for man pages and the decompression of
the input are active in every mode.
Graphical Display Modes
The graphical display modes work mostly in the X Window
environment (or similar implementations within other windowing
environments). The environment variable
$DISPLAY and the option --display
are used for specifying the X Window display to be used. If
this environment variable is empty groffer assumes that no
X Window is running and changes to a text mode.
You can change this automatic behavior by the option
--default-modes.
Known viewers for the graphical display modes and their standard
X Window viewer programs are
•
in a PDF viewer (pdf mode)
•
in a web browser (html or www mode)
•
in a Postscript viewer (ps mode)
•
X Window roff viewers such as gxditview(1) or
xditview(1) (in x mode)
•
in a dvi viewer program (dvi mode)
The pdf mode has a major advantage — it is the only
graphical display mode that allows to search for text within the
viewer; this can be a really important feature. Unfortunately, it
takes some time to transform the input into the PDF format, so it
was not chosen as the major mode.
These graphical viewers can be customized by options of the
X Window Toolkit. But the groffer options use a
leading double minus instead of the single minus used by the
X Window Toolkit.
Text modes
There are two modes for text output, mode text for
plain output without a pager and mode tty for a text
output on a text terminal using some pager program.
If the variable $DISPLAY is not set or
empty, groffer assumes that it should use
tty mode.
In the actual implementation, the groff output device
latin1 is chosen for text modes. This can be
changed by specifying option -T or --device.
The pager to be used can be specified by one of the options
--pager and --tty-viewer, or by the environment
variable $PAGER. If all of
this is not used the less(1) program with the option
-r for correctly displaying control sequences is used as
the default pager.
Special Modes for Debugging and Development
These modes use the groffer file determination and
decompression. This is combined into a single input file that is
fed directly into groff with different strategy without
the groffer viewing facilities. These modes are regarded
as advanced, they are useful for debugging and development
purposes.
The source mode with option --source just
displays the decompressed input.
Otion --to-stdout does not display in a graphical mode. It
just generates the file for the chosen mode and then prints its
content to standard output.
The groff mode passes the input to groff using
only some suitable options provided to groffer. This
enables the user to save the generated output into a file or pipe
it into another program.
In groff mode, the option -Z disables
post-processing, thus producing the groff intermediate
output. In this mode, the input is formatted, but not
postprocessed; see groff_out(5) for details.
All groff short options are supported by groffer.
bugs
Report bugs to
the bug-groff mailing
list (mailto:bug-groff[:at:]gnu[:dot:]org). Include a complete, self-contained example that
will allow the bug to be reproduced, and say which version
of groffer you are using.
You can also
use the groff mailing
list (mailto:groff[:at:]gnu[:dot:]org), but you must first subscribe to this list. You can
do that by visiting the
groff
mailing list web page (http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/groff).
See
groff(1) for information on availability.
see also
groff ,
troff
Details on the options and
environment variables available in groff; all of them
can be used with groffer.
groff
Documentation of the
groff language.
grog
Internally, groffer
tries to guess the groff command line options from
the input using this program.
groff_out
Documentation on the groff
intermediate output (ditroff output).
groff_tmac
Documentation on the
groff macro files.
man
The standard program to display man pages.
The information there is only useful if it is the
man page for GNU man. Then it documents
the options and environment variables that are supported by
groffer.
gxditview ,
xditview (1x)
Viewers for
groffer’s x mode.
kpdf,
kghostview, evince , ggv,
gv, ghostview, gs
Viewers for
groffer’s ps mode.
kpdf,
acroread, evince, xpdf,
gpdf, kghostview, ggv
Viewers for
groffer’s pdf mode.
kdvi,
xdvi , dvilx
Viewers for
groffer’s dvi mode.
konqueror,
epiphany , firefox , mozilla,
netscape, lynx
Web-browsers for
groffer’s html or
www mode.
less
Standard pager program for the
tty mode.
gzip ,
bzip2
The decompression programs
supported by groffer.
author
This file was
written by Bernd Warken.