1GROFF_FILENAMES(7)     Miscellaneous Information Manual     GROFF_FILENAMES(7)
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NAME

6       groff_filenames — filename extensions for roff and groff
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DESCRIPTION

9       Since  the  evolution  of  roff in the 1970s, a whole bunch of filename
10       extensions for roff files were used.
11
12       The roff extensions refer to preprocessors or  macro  packages.   These
13       extensions are fixed in all Unix-like operating systems.
14
15       Later  on,  groff  added  some  more  extensions.   We will now write a
16       man-page about these filename extensions.
17

COMPRESSION OF ROFF FILES

19       Each roff file can be optionally compressed.  That means that the total
20       filename  ends  with  a compressor name.  So the whole filename has the
21       structure <name>.<extension>[.<compression>].
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23       Mostly known are the compressor extensions .Z, .gz, and .bzip2.   Rela‐
24       tively new is .xz.
25
26       From  now  on,  we  will  ignore  the compressions and only comment the
27       structure <name>.<extension>.
28

MAN-PAGES

30       The Unix manual pages are shortly named man-pages.  The man-page  style
31       is the best known part of the roff language.
32
33       The  extensions  for man should be better documented.  So this is docu‐
34       mented here.
35
36       Files written in the man language use the following extension:  *.<sec‐
37       tion>[<group>].
38
39   Man-page Sections
40       The traditional man-page <section> is a digit from 1 to 8.
41
42       <name>.1
43       <name>.2
44       <name>.3
45       <name>.4
46       <name>.5
47       <name>.6
48       <name>.7
49       <name>.8
50              Classic man-page sections.
51
52       Linux added the section number 9 for kernel man-pages.
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54       <name>.9
55              Linux kernel man-pages
56
57       In  older  commercial  Unix  systems, the 3 characters l, n, and o were
58       also used as section names.  This is today deprecated,  but  there  are
59       still documents in this format.
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61       <name>.l
62       <name>.n
63       <name>.o
64              Deprecated old man-page sections.
65
66   Man-page Group Extensions
67       The <group> extension in .<section>[<group>] is optional, but it can be
68       any string of word characters.  Usually programmers use  a  group  name
69       that  is  already  used, e.g.  x for X Window System documents or tk to
70       refer to the tk programming language.
71
72       Examples:
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74       groff.1
75              is the man-page for groff in section 1 without a group
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77       xargs.1posix.gz
78              is the man-page for the program xargs in  section  1  and  group
79              posix; moreover it is compressed with gz (gzip).
80
81       config.5ssl
82              OpenSSL  CONF  library  configuration  files from section 5 with
83              group ssl.
84
85       dpkg-reconfigure.8cdebconf
86              man-page for the program dpkg-reconfigure in section 8 and group
87              cdebconf.
88
89   Source of Man-pages
90       There are 2 roff languages for writing man-pages: man and mdoc.
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92       The names of these 2 styles are taken as extensions for the source code
93       files of man-pages in the groff package.
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95       <name>.man
96              traditional Unix-like man-page format within groff source files.
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98       <name>.n
99              A temporary man-page file produced from a name.man man-page by a
100              run of make within the groff source package.
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102       <name>.mdoc
103              Man-page format in BSD.
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105       <name>.1b
106              Man-page format in heirloom roff .
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108       <name>.mandoc
109              Files  using  this  extension recognize both man-page formats in
110              groff and other processors.
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TRADITIONAL TROFF EXTENSIONS

113   Files Using Macro Packages
114       The classical roff languages were interpreted by the traditional  troff
115       and nroff programs.
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117       There were several roff languages, each represented by a macro-package.
118       Each of these provided a suitable file name extension:
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120       <name>.me
121              roff file using the me macro package.
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123       <name>.mm
124              roff file using the mm macro package
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126       <name>.ms
127              roff file using the ms macro package
128
129       All of these classical roff languages and their  extensions  are  still
130       very active in groff.
131
132   Source Code for Macro Packages (TMAC Files)
133       In  traditional  roff the source code for the macro packages was stored
134       in TMAC files.  Their file names have the form:
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136       tmac.<package>,
137              <package> is the name of the macro package without the leading m
138              character, which is reintegrated by the option -m.
139
140       For example, tmac.an is the source for the man macro package.
141
142       In  the  groff  source,  more  suitable file names were integrated, see
143       later on.
144
145   Preprocessors
146       Moreover, the following preprocessors were used as filename extension:
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148       <name>.chem
149              for the integration of chemical formulas
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151       <name>.eqn
152              for the mathematical use of equations
153
154       <name>.pic
155              graphical tool
156
157       <name>.tbl
158              for tables with tbl
159
160       <name>.ref
161              for files using the prefer preprocessor
162
163   Classical Roff Files
164       <name>.t
165       <name>.tr
166              for files using the roff language of any kind
167

NEW GROFF EXTENSIONS

169       GNU roff groff is the actual roff standard, both for classical roff and
170       new  extensions.   So  even  the used new extensions in the source code
171       should be regarded as actual standard.  The  following  extensions  are
172       used instead of classical .t or .tr:
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174       <name>.groff
175       <name>.roff
176              general ending for files using the groff language
177
178   Source Code for Macro Packages (TMAC Files)
179       As  the classical form tmac.<package_without_m>, of the TMAC file names
180       is quite strange, groff added the following structures:
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182       <package_without_m>.tmac
183       m<package>.tmac
184       groff_m<package>.tmac
185
186   Files Using new Macro Packages
187       Groff uses the following new macro packages:
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189       <name>.mmse
190              file with swedish mm macros for groff
191
192       <name>.mom
193              files written in the groff macro package mom
194
195       <name>.www
196              files written in HTML-like groff macros.
197
198   Preprocessors and Postprocessors
199       <name>.hdtbl
200              a new tbl format.  See groff_hdtbl(7).
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202       <name>.grap
203              files written for the graphical grap processor.
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205       <name>.grn
206              for including gremlin(1), pictures, see grn(1).
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208       <name>.pdfroff
209              transform this file with pdfroff of the groff system
210

SEE ALSO

212       History and future
213              roff(7), man-pages(7), groff_diff(7), groff(7)
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215       Compression
216              uncompress(1posix), gzip2(1), bzip2(1), xz(1)
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218       A man-page of the naming form name(n) can be read in text mode by
219              man n name
220       or in graphical mode (PDF) by
221              groffer n name
222
223       Gunnar Ritter's  Heirloom  roff  projecthttps://github.com/n-t-roff/
224       heirloom-doctools⟩.  You can get this package with the shell command:
225              $ git clone https://github.com/n-t-roff/heirloom-doctools
226

COPYING

228       Copyright © 2013-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
229
230       This  file  is  part of groff, a free software project.  You can redis‐
231       tribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU  General  Public
232       License  version  2 (GPL2) as published by the Free Software Foundation
233       (FSF).
234
235       The   license   text   can   be    found    in    the    internet    at
236http://www.gnu.org/licenses⟩.
237

AUTHORS

239       This file was written by Bernd Warken ⟨groff-bernd.warken-72@web.de⟩.
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243Groff Version 1.22.3            4 November 2014             GROFF_FILENAMES(7)
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