1GROFFER(1) General Commands Manual GROFFER(1)
2
6 groffer - display groff files and man pages on X and tty
7
9 groffer [--] [filespec ....]
10 groffer [mode-option ....] [groff-options ....] [man-options ....]
12 [X-options ....] [--] [filespec ....]
13 groffer -h | --help
15 groffer -v | --version
17
19 The groffer program is the easiest way to use groff(1). It can display
20 arbitrary documents written in the groff language, see groff(7), or
21 other roff languages, see roff(7), that are compatible to the original
22 troff language. It finds and runs all necessary groff preprocessors,
23 such as chem.
24 The groffer program also includes many of the features for finding and
26 displaying the Unix manual pages (man pages), such that it can be used
27 as a replacement for a man(1) program. Moreover, compressed files that
28 can be handled by gzip(1) or bzip2(1) are decompressed on-the-fly.
29 The normal usage is quite simple by supplying a file name or name of a
31 man page without further options. But the option handling has many
32 possibilities for creating special behaviors. This can be done either
33 in configuration files, with the shell environment variable
34 $GROFFER_OPT, or on the command line.
35 The output can be generated and viewed in several different ways avail‐
37 able for groff. This includes the groff native X Window viewer
38 gxditview(1), each Postcript, pdf, or dvi display program, a web brows‐
39 er by generating html in www mode, or several text modes in text termi‐
40 nals.
41 Most of the options that must be named when running groff directly are
43 determined automatically for groffer, due to the internal usage of the
44 grog(1) program. But all parts can also be controlled manually by ar‐
45 guments.
46 Several file names can be specified on the command line arguments.
48 They are transformed into a single document in the normal way of groff.
49 Option handling is done in GNU style. Options and file names can be
51 mixed freely. The option `--' closes the option handling, all follow‐
52 ing arguments are treated as file names. Long options can be abbrevi‐
53 ated in several ways.
54
56 breaking options
57 [-h | --help] [-v | --version]
59 groffer mode options
61 [--auto] [--default] [--default-modes mode1,mode2,....]
63 [--dvi] [--groff] [--html] [--latin1] [--mode display_mode]
64 [--pdf] [--pdf2] [--ps] [--source] [--text] [--to-stdout]
65 [--tty] [--utf8] [--viewer prog] [--www] [--x | --X]
66 options related to groff
68 [-T | --device device] [-Z | --intermediate-output | --ditroff]
70 All further groff short options are accepted.
72 options for man pages
74 [--apropos] [--apropos-data] [--apropos-devel]
76 [--apropos-progs] [--man] [--no-man] [--no-special] [--whatis]
77 long options taken over from GNU man
79 [--all] [--ascii] [--ditroff] [--extension suffix]
81 [--locale language] [--local-file] [--location | --where]
82 [--manpath dir1:dir2:....] [--no-location] [--pager program]
83 [--sections sec1:sec2:....] [--systems sys1,sys2,....]
84 [--troff-device device]
85 Further long options of GNU man are accepted as well.
87 X Window Toolkit options
89 [--bd | --bordercolor pixels] [--bg | --background color]
91 [--bw | --borderwidth pixels] [--display X-display]
92 [--fg | --foreground color] [--fn | --ft | --font font_name]
93 [--geometry size_pos] [--resolution value] [--rv]
94 [--title string] [--xrm X-resource]
95 options for development
97 [--debug] [--debug-filenames] [--debug-grog] [--debug-keep]
99 [--debug-params] [--debug-tmpdir] [--do-nothing] [--print text]
100 [-V]
101 filespec arguments
103 The filespec parameters are all arguments that are neither an
105 option nor an option argument. They usually mean a file name or
106 a man page searching scheme.
107 In the following, the term section_extension is used. It means
109 a word that consists of a man section that is optionally fol‐
110 lowed by an extension. The name of a man section is a single
111 character from [1–9on], the extension is some word. The exten‐
112 sion is mostly lacking.
113 No filespec parameters means standard input.
115 - stands for standard input (can occur several times).
117 filename the path name of an existing file.
119 man:name(section_extension)
121 man:name.section_extension
122 name(section_extension)
123 name.section_extension
124 section_extension name
125 search the man page name in the section with optional
126 extension section_extension.
127 man:name man page in the lowest man section that has name.
129 name if name is not an existing file search for the
131 man page name in the lowest man section.
132
134 The groffer program can usually be run with very few options. But for
135 special purposes, it supports many options. These can be classified in
136 5 option classes.
137 All short options of groffer are compatible with the short options of
139 groff(1). All long options of groffer are compatible with the long
140 options of man(1).
141 Arguments for long option names can be abbreviated in several ways.
143 First, the argument is checked whether it can be prolonged as is. Fur‐
144 thermore, each minus sign - is considered as a starting point for a new
145 abbreviation. This leads to a set of multiple abbreviations for a sin‐
146 gle argument. For example, --de-n-f can be used as an abbreviation for
147 --debug-not-func, but --de-n works as well. If the abbreviation of the
148 argument leads to several resulting options an error is raised.
149 These abbreviations are only allowed in the environment variable
151 $GROFFER_OPT, but not in the configuration files. In configuration,
152 all long options must be exact.
153 groffer breaking Options
155 As soon as one of these options is found on the command line it is exe‐
156 cuted, printed to standard output, and the running groffer is termi‐
157 nated thereafter. All other arguments are ignored.
158 -h | --help
160 Print help information with a short explanation of options to
161 standard output.
162 -v | --version
164 Print version information to standard output.
165 groffer Mode Options
167 The display mode and the viewer programs are determined by these
168 options. If none of these mode and viewer options is specified groffer
169 tries to find a suitable display mode automatically. The default modes
170 are mode pdf, mode ps, mode html, mode x, and mode dvi in X Window with
171 different viewers and mode tty with device utf8 under less on a termi‐
172 nal; other modes are tested if the programs for the main default mode
173 do not exist.
174 In X Window, many programs create their own window when called.
176 groffer can run these viewers as an independent program in the back‐
177 ground. As this does not work in text mode on a terminal (tty) there
178 must be a way to know which viewers are X Window graphical programs.
179 The groffer script has a small set of information on some viewer names.
180 If a viewer argument of the command-line chooses an element that is
181 kept as X Window program in this list it is treated as a viewer that
182 can run in the background. All other, unknown viewer calls are not run
183 in the background.
184 For each mode, you are free to choose whatever viewer you want. That
186 need not be some graphical viewer suitable for this mode. There is a
187 chance to view the output source; for example, the combination of the
188 options --mode=ps and --viewer=less shows the content of the Postscript
189 output, the source code, with the pager less.
190 --auto Equivalent to --mode=auto.
192 --default
194 Reset all configuration from previously processed command line
195 options to the default values. This is useful to wipe out all
196 former options of the configuration, in $GROFFER_OPT, and
197 restart option processing using only the rest of the command
198 line.
199 --default-modes mode1,mode2,....
201 Set the sequence of modes for auto mode to the comma separated
202 list given in the argument. See --mode for details on modes.
203 Display in the default manner; actually, this means to try the
204 modes x, ps, and tty in this sequence.
205 --dvi Equivalent to --mode=dvi.
207 --viewer prog
208 Choose a viewer program for dvi mode. This can be a file name
209 or a program to be searched in $PATH. Known X Window dvi view‐
210 ers include xdvi(1) and dvilx(1). In each case, arguments can
211 be provided additionally.
212 --groff
214 Equivalent to --mode=groff.
215 --html Equivalent to --mode=html.
217 --viewer
218 Choose a web browser program for viewing in html mode. It can
219 be the path name of an executable file or a program in $PATH.
220 In each case, arguments can be provided additionally.
221 --mode value
223 Set the display mode. The following mode values are recognized:
224 auto Select the automatic determination of the display mode.
226 The sequence of modes that are tried can be set with the
227 --default-modes option. Useful for restoring the
228 default mode when a different mode was specified before.
229 dvi Display formatted input in a dvi viewer program. By
231 default, the formatted input is displayed with the
232 xdvi(1) program.
233 groff After the file determination, switch groffer to process
235 the input like groff(1) would do. This disables the
236 groffer viewing features.
237 html Translate the input into html format and display the
239 result in a web browser program. By default, the exis‐
240 tence of a sequence of standard web browsers is tested,
241 starting with konqueror(1) and mozilla(1). The text html
242 viewer is lynx(1).
243 pdf Transform roff input files into a PDF file by using the
245 groff (1) device -Tpdf. This is the default PDF genera‐
246 tor. The generated PDF file is displayed with suitable
247 viewer programs, such as okular(1).
248 pdf2 This is the traditional pdf mode. Sometimes this mode
250 produces more correct output than the default PDF mode.
251 By default, the input is formatted by groff using the
252 Postscript device, then it is transformed into the PDF
253 file format using gs(1), or ps2pdf(1). If that's not
254 possible, the Postscript mode (ps) is used instead.
255 Finally it is displayed using different viewer programs.
256 ps Display formatted input in a Postscript viewer program.
258 By default, the formatted input is displayed in one of
259 many viewer programs.
260 text Format in a groff text mode and write the result to stan‐
262 dard output without a pager or viewer program. The text
263 device, latin1 by default, can be chosen with option -T.
264 tty Format in a groff text mode and write the result to stan‐
266 dard output using a text pager program, even when in
267 X Window.
268 www Equivalent to --mode=html.
270 x Display the formatted input in a native roff viewer. By
272 default, the formatted input is displayed with the
273 gxditview(1) program being distributed together with
274 groff. But the standard X Window tool xditview(1) can
275 also be chosen with the option --viewer. The default
276 resolution is 75dpi, but 100dpi are also possible. The
277 default groff device for the resolution of 75dpi is
278 X75-12, for 100dpi it is X100. The corresponding groff
279 intermediate output for the actual device is generated
280 and the result is displayed. For a resolution of 100dpi,
281 the default width of the geometry of the display program
282 is chosen to 850dpi.
283 X Equivalent to --mode=x.
285 The following modes do not use the groffer viewing features.
287 They are only interesting for advanced applications.
288 groff Generate device output with plain groff without using the
290 special viewing features of groffer. If no device was
291 specified by option -T the groff default ps is assumed.
292 source Output the roff source code of the input files without
294 further processing.
295 --pdf Equivalent to --mode=pdf.
297 --pdf2 Equivalent to --mode=pdf2.
298 --viewer prog
299 Choose a viewer program for pdf mode. This can be a file name
300 or a program to be searched in $PATH; arguments can be provided
301 additionally.
302 --ps Equivalent to --mode=ps.
304 --viewer prog
305 Choose a viewer program for ps mode. This can be a file name or
306 a program to be searched in $PATH. Common Postscript viewers
307 include okular(1), evince(1), gv(1), ghostview(1), and gs(1), In
308 each case, arguments can be provided additionally.
309 --source
311 Equivalent to --mode=source.
312 --text Equivalent to --mode=text.
314 --to-stdout
316 The file for the chosen mode is generated and its content is
317 printed to standard output. It will not be displayed in graphi‐
318 cal mode.
319 --tty Equivalent to --mode=tty.
321 --viewer prog
322 Choose a text pager for mode tty. The standard pager is
323 less(1). This option is equivalent to man option --pager=prog.
324 The option argument can be a file name or a program to be
325 searched in $PATH; arguments can be provided additionally.
326 --www Equivalent to --mode=html.
328 --viewer
329 prog.
330 --X | --x
332 Equivalent to --mode=x.
333 --viewer prog
334 Choose a viewer program for x mode. Suitable viewer programs
335 are gxditview(1) which is the default and xditview(1). The
336 argument can be any executable file or a program in $PATH; argu‐
337 ments can be provided additionally.
338 -- Signals the end of option processing; all remaining arguments
340 are interpreted as filespec parameters.
341 Besides these, groffer accepts all short options that are valid for the
343 groff(1) program. All non-groffer options are sent unmodified via grog
344 to groff. So postprocessors, macro packages, compatibility with clas‐
345 sical troff, and much more can be manually specified.
346 Options related to groff
348 All short options of groffer are compatible with the short options of
349 groff(1). The following of groff options have either an additional
350 special meaning within groffer or make sense for normal usage.
351 Because of the special outputting behavior of the groff option -Z
353 groffer was designed to be switched into groff mode; the groffer view‐
354 ing features are disabled there. The other groff options do not switch
355 the mode, but allow to customize the formatting process.
356 --a This generates an ascii approximation of output in the
358 text modes. That could be important when the text pager has
359 problems with control sequences in tty mode.
360 --m file
362 Add file as a groff macro file. This is useful in case it can‐
363 not be recognized automatically.
364 --P opt_or_arg
366 Send the argument opt_or_arg as an option or option argument to
367 the actual groff postprocessor.
368 --T devname | --device devname
370 This option determines groff's output device. The most impor‐
371 tant devices are the text output devices for referring to the
372 different character sets, such as ascii, utf8, latin1, utf8, and
373 others. Each of these arguments switches groffer into a
374 text mode using this device, to mode tty if the actual mode is
375 not a text mode. The following devname arguments are mapped to
376 the corresponding groffer --mode=devname option: dvi, html, and
377 ps. All X* arguments are mapped to mode x. Each other devname
378 argument switches to mode groff using this device.
379 --X is equivalent to groff -X. It displays the groff intermediate
381 output with gxditview. As the quality is relatively bad this
382 option is deprecated; use --X instead because the x mode uses an
383 X* device for a better display.
384 -Z | --intermediate-output | --ditroff
386 Switch into groff mode and format the input with the groff
387 intermediate output without postprocessing; see groff_out(5).
388 This is equivalent to option --ditroff of man, which can be used
389 as well.
390 All other groff options are supported by groffer, but they are just
392 transparently transferred to groff without any intervention. The
393 options that are not explicitly handled by groffer are transparently
394 passed to groff. Therefore these transparent options are not docu‐
395 mented here, but in groff(1). Due to the automatism in groffer, none
396 of these groff options should be needed, except for advanced usage.
397 Options for man pages
399 --apropos
400 Start the apropos(1) command or facility of man(1) for searching
401 the filespec arguments within all man page descriptions. Each
402 filespec argument is taken for search as it is; section specific
403 parts are not handled, such that 7 groff searches for the two
404 arguments 7 and groff, with a large result; for the filespec
405 groff.7 nothing will be found. The language locale is handled
406 only when the called programs do support this; the GNU apropos
407 and man -k do not. The display differs from the apropos program
408 by the following concepts:
409 * Construct a groff frame similar to a man page to the output of
411 apropos,
412 * each filespec argument is searched on its own.
414 * The restriction by --sections is handled as well,
416 * wildcard characters are allowed and handled without a further
418 option.
419 --apropos-data
421 Show only the apropos descriptions for data documents, these are
422 the man(7) sections 4, 5, and 7. Direct section declarations
423 are ignored, wildcards are accepted.
424 --apropos-devel
426 Show only the apropos descriptions for development documents,
427 these are the man(7) sections 2, 3, and 9. Direct section dec‐
428 larations are ignored, wildcards are accepted.
429 --apropos-progs
431 Show only the apropos descriptions for documents on programs,
432 these are the man(7) sections 1, 6, and 8. Direct section dec‐
433 larations are ignored, wildcards are accepted.
434 --whatis
436 For each filespec argument search all man pages and display
437 their description — or say that it is not a man page. This is
438 written from anew, so it differs from man's whatis output by the
439 following concepts
440 * each retrieved file name is added,
442 * local files are handled as well,
444 * the language and system locale is supported,
446 * the display is framed by a groff output format similar to a
448 man page,
449 * wildcard characters are allowed without a further option.
451 The following options were added to groffer for choosing whether the
453 file name arguments are interpreted as names for local files or as a
454 search pattern for man pages. The default is looking up for local
455 files.
456 --man Check the non-option command line arguments (filespecs) first on
458 being man pages, then whether they represent an existing file.
459 By default, a filespec is first tested whether it is an existing
460 file.
461 --no-man | --local-file
463 Do not check for man pages. --local-file is the corresponding
464 man option.
465 --no-special
467 Disable former calls of --all, --apropos*, and --whatis.
468 Long options taken over from GNU man
470 The long options of groffer were synchronized with the long options of
471 GNU man. All long options of GNU man are recognized, but not all of
472 these options are important to groffer, so most of them are just ig‐
473 nored. These ignored man options are --catman, --troff, and --update.
474 In the following, the man options that have a special meaning for
476 groffer are documented.
477 If your system has GNU man installed the full set of long and short op‐
479 tions of the GNU man program can be passed via the environment variable
480 $MANOPT; see man(1).
481 --all In searching man pages, retrieve all suitable documents instead
483 of only one.
484 -7 | --ascii
486 In text modes, display ASCII translation of special characters
487 for critical environment. This is equivalent to groff
488 -mtty_char; see groff_tmac(5).
489 --ditroff
491 Produce groff intermediate output. This is equivalent to
492 groffer -Z.
493 --extension suffix
495 Restrict man page search to file names that have suffix appended
496 to their section element. For example, in the file name
497 /usr/share/man/man3/terminfo.3ncurses.gz the man page extension
498 is ncurses.
499 --locale language
501 Set the language for man pages. This has the same effect, but
502 overwrites $LANG.
503 --location
505 Print the location of the retrieved files to standard error.
506 --no-location
508 Do not display the location of retrieved files; this resets a
509 former call to --location. This was added by groffer.
510 --manpath 'dir1:dir2:....'
512 Use the specified search path for retrieving man pages instead
513 of the program defaults. If the argument is set to the empty
514 string "" the search for man page is disabled.
515 --pager
517 Set the pager program in tty mode; default is less. This can be
518 set with --viewer.
519 --sections sec1:sec2:....
521 Restrict searching for man pages to the given sections, a colon-
522 separated list.
523 --systems sys1,sys2,....
525 Search for man pages for the given operating systems; the argu‐
526 ment systems is a comma-separated list.
527 --where
529 Equivalent to --location.
530 X Window Toolkit Options
532 The following long options were adapted from the corresponding
533 X Window Toolkit options. groffer will pass them to the actual viewer
534 program if it is an X Window program. Otherwise these options are ig‐
535 nored.
536 Unfortunately these options use the old style of a single minus for
538 long options. For groffer that was changed to the standard with using
539 a double minus for long options, for example, groffer uses the option
540 --font for the X Window option -font.
541 See X(7) and the documentation on the X Window Toolkit options for more
543 details on these options and their arguments.
544 --background color
546 Set the background color of the viewer window.
547 --bd pixels
549 This is equivalent to --bordercolor.
550 --bg color
552 This is equivalent to --background.
553 --bw pixels
555 This is equivalent to --borderwidth.
556 --bordercolor pixels
558 Specifies the color of the border surrounding the viewer window.
559 --borderwidth pixels
561 Specifies the width in pixels of the border surrounding the
562 viewer window.
563 --display X-display
565 Set the X Window display on which the viewer program shall be
566 started, see the X Window documentation for the syntax of the
567 argument.
568 --foreground color
570 Set the foreground color of the viewer window.
571 --fg color
573 This is equivalent to --foreground.
574 --fn font_name
576 This is equivalent to --font.
577 --font font_name
579 Set the font used by the viewer window. The argument is an
580 X Window font name.
581 --ft font_name
583 This is equivalent to --font.
584 --geometry size_pos
586 Set the geometry of the display window, that means its size and
587 its starting position. See X(7) for the syntax of the argument.
588 --resolution value
590 Set X Window resolution in dpi (dots per inch) in some viewer
591 programs. The only supported dpi values are 75 and 100. Actu‐
592 ally, the default resolution for groffer is set to 75dpi. The
593 resolution also sets the default device in mode x.
594 --rv Reverse foreground and background color of the viewer window.
596 --title 'some text'
598 Set the title for the viewer window.
599 --xrm 'resource'
601 Set X Window resource.
602 Options for Development
604 --debug
605 Enable all debugging options --debug-type. The temporary files
606 are kept and not deleted, the grog output is printed, the name
607 of the temporary directory is printed, the displayed file names
608 are printed, and the parameters are printed.
609 --debug-filenames
611 Print the names of the files and man pages that are displayed by
612 groffer.
613 --debug-grog
615 Print the output of all grog commands.
616 --debug-keep
618 Enable two debugging informations. Print the name of the tempo‐
619 rary directory and keep the temporary files, do not delete them
620 during the run of groffer.
621 --debug-params
623 Print the parameters, as obtained from the configuration files,
624 from GROFFER_OPT, and the command line arguments.
625 --debug-tmpdir
627 Print the name of the temporary directory.
628 --do-nothing
630 This is like --version, but without the output; no viewer is
631 started. This makes only sense in development.
632 --print=text
634 Just print the argument to standard error. This is good for pa‐
635 rameter check.
636 -V This is an advanced option for debugging only. Instead of dis‐
638 playing the formatted input, a lot of groffer specific informa‐
639 tion is printed to standard output:
640 * the output file name in the temporary directory,
642 * the display mode of the actual groffer run,
644 * the display program for viewing the output with its arguments,
646 * the active parameters from the config files, the arguments in
648 $GROFFER_OPT, and the arguments of the command line,
649 * the pipeline that would be run by the groff program, but with‐
651 out executing it.
652 Other useful debugging options are the groff option -Z and
654 --mode=groff.
655 Filespec Arguments
657 A filespec parameter is an argument that is not an option or option ar‐
658 gument. In groffer, filespec parameters are a file name or a template
659 for searching man pages. These input sources are collected and com‐
660 posed into a single output file such as groff does.
661 The strange POSIX behavior to regard all arguments behind the first
663 non-option argument as filespec arguments is ignored. The GNU behavior
664 to recognize options even when mixed with filespec arguments is used
665 throughout. But, as usual, the double minus argument -- ends the op‐
666 tion handling and interprets all following arguments as filespec argu‐
667 ments; so the POSIX behavior can be easily adopted.
668 The options --apropos* have a special handling of filespec arguments.
670 Each argument is taken as a search scheme of its own. Also a regexp
671 (regular expression) can be used in the filespec. For example, groffer
672 --apropos '^gro.f$' searches groff in the man page name, while groffer
673 --apropos groff searches groff somewhere in the name or description of
674 the man pages.
675 All other parts of groffer, such as the normal display or the output
677 with --whatis have a different scheme for filespecs. No regular ex‐
678 pressions are used for the arguments. The filespec arguments are han‐
679 dled by the following scheme.
680 It is necessary to know that on each system the man pages are sorted
682 according to their content into several sections. The classical man
683 sections have a single-character name, either a digit from 1 to 9 or
684 one of the characters n or o.
685 This can optionally be followed by a string, the so-called extension.
687 The extension allows to store several man pages with the same name in
688 the same section. But the extension is only rarely used, usually it is
689 omitted. Then the extensions are searched automatically by alphabet.
690 In the following, we use the name section_extension for a word that
692 consists of a single character section name or a section character that
693 is followed by an extension. Each filespec parameter can have one of
694 the following forms in decreasing sequence.
695 * No filespec parameters means that groffer waits for standard input.
697 The minus option - always stands for standard input; it can occur
698 several times. If you want to look up a man page called - use the
699 argument man:-.
700 * Next a filespec is tested whether it is the path name of an existing
702 file. Otherwise it is assumed to be a searching pattern for a
703 man page.
704 * man:name(section_extension), man:name.section_extension,
706 name(section_extension), or name.section_extension search the
707 man page name in man section and possibly extension of
708 section_extension.
709 * Now man:name searches for a man page in the lowest man section that
711 has a document called name.
712 * section_extension name is a pattern of 2 arguments that originates
714 from a strange argument parsing of the man program. Again, this
715 searches the man page name with section_extension, a combination of a
716 section character optionally followed by an extension.
717 * We are left with the argument name which is not an existing file. So
719 this searches for the man page called name in the lowest man section
720 that has a document for this name.
721 Several file name arguments can be supplied. They are mixed by groff
723 into a single document. Note that the set of option arguments must fit
724 to all of these file arguments. So they should have at least the same
725 style of the groff language.
726
728 By default, the groffer program collects all input into a single file,
729 formats it with the groff program for a certain device, and then choos‐
730 es a suitable viewer program. The device and viewer process in groffer
731 is called a mode. The mode and viewer of a running groffer program is
732 selected automatically, but the user can also choose it with options.
733 The modes are selected by option the arguments of --mode=anymode. Ad‐
734 ditionally, each of this argument can be specified as an option of its
735 own, such as anymode. Most of these modes have a viewer program, which
736 can be chosen by the option --viewer.
737 Several different modes are offered, graphical modes for X Window,
739 text modes, and some direct groff modes for debugging and development.
740 By default, groffer first tries whether x mode is possible, then
742 ps mode, and finally tty mode. This mode testing sequence for
743 auto mode can be changed by specifying a comma separated list of modes
744 with the option --default-modes.
745 The searching for man pages and the decompression of the input are ac‐
747 tive in every mode.
748 Graphical Display Modes
750 The graphical display modes work mostly in the X Window environment (or
751 similar implementations within other windowing environments). The en‐
752 vironment variable $DISPLAY and the option --display are used for spec‐
753 ifying the X Window display to be used. If this environment variable
754 is empty groffer assumes that no X Window is running and changes to a
755 text mode. You can change this automatic behavior by the option --de‐
756 fault-modes.
757 Known viewers for the graphical display modes and their standard
759 X Window viewer programs are
760 * in a PDF viewer (pdf mode)
762 * in a web browser (html or www mode)
764 * in a Postscript viewer (ps mode)
766 * X Window roff viewers such as gxditview(1) or xditview(1) (in x mode)
768 * in a dvi viewer program (dvi mode)
770 The pdf mode has a major advantage — it is the only graphical display
772 mode that allows to search for text within the viewer; this can be a
773 really important feature. Unfortunately, it takes some time to trans‐
774 form the input into the PDF format, so it was not chosen as the major
775 mode.
776 These graphical viewers can be customized by options of the
778 X Window Toolkit. But the groffer options use a leading double minus
779 instead of the single minus used by the X Window Toolkit.
780 Text modes
782 There are two modes for text output, mode text for plain output without
783 a pager and mode tty for a text output on a text terminal using some
784 pager program.
785 If the variable $DISPLAY is not set or empty, groffer assumes that it
787 should use tty mode.
788 In the actual implementation, the groff output device latin1 is chosen
790 for text modes. This can be changed by specifying option -T or
791 --device.
792 The pager to be used can be specified by one of the options --pager and
794 --viewer, or by the environment variable $PAGER. If all of this is not
795 used the less(1) program with the option -r for correctly displaying
796 control sequences is used as the default pager.
797 Special Modes for Debugging and Development
799 These modes use the groffer file determination and decompression. This
800 is combined into a single input file that is fed directly into groff
801 with different strategy without the groffer viewing facilities. These
802 modes are regarded as advanced, they are useful for debugging and de‐
803 velopment purposes.
804 The source mode with option --source just displays the decompressed in‐
806 put.
807 Option --to-stdout does not display in a graphical mode. It just gen‐
809 erates the file for the chosen mode and then prints its content to
810 standard output.
811 The groff mode passes the input to groff using only some suitable op‐
813 tions provided to groffer. This enables the user to save the generated
814 output into a file or pipe it into another program.
815 In groff mode, the option -Z disables post-processing, thus producing
817 the groff intermediate output. In this mode, the input is formatted,
818 but not postprocessed; see groff_out(5) for details.
819 All groff short options are supported by groffer.
821
823 The default behavior of groffer is to first test whether a file parame‐
824 ter represents a local file; if it is not an existing file name, it is
825 assumed to represent the name of a man page. The following options can
826 be used to determine whether the arguments should be handled as file
827 name or man page arguments.
828 --man forces to interpret all file parameters as filespecs for search‐
830 ing man pages.
831 --no-man
833 --local-file
834 disable the man searching; so only local files are displayed.
835 If neither a local file nor a man page was retrieved for some file pa‐
837 rameter a warning is issued on standard error, but processing is con‐
838 tinued.
839 Search Algorithm
841 Let us now assume that a man page should be searched. The groffer pro‐
842 gram provides a search facility for man pages. All long options, all
843 environment variables, and most of the functionality of the GNU man(1)
844 program were implemented. The search algorithm shall determine which
845 file is displayed for a given man page. The process can be modified by
846 options and environment variables.
847 The only man action that is omitted in groffer are the preformatted
849 man pages, also called cat pages. With the excellent performance of
850 the actual computers, the preformatted man pages aren't necessary any
851 longer. Additionally, groffer is a roff program; it wants to read roff
852 source files and format them itself.
853 The algorithm for retrieving the file for a man page needs first a set
855 of directories. This set starts with the so-called man path that is
856 modified later on by adding names of operating system and language.
857 This arising set is used for adding the section directories which con‐
858 tain the man page files.
859 The man path is a list of directories that are separated by colon. It
861 is generated by the following methods.
862 * The environment variable $MANPATH can be set.
864 * It can be read from the arguments of the environment variable
866 $MANOPT.
867 * The man path can be manually specified by using the option --manpath.
869 An empty argument disables the man page searching.
870 * When no man path was set the manpath(1) program is tried to determine
872 one.
873 * If this does not work a reasonable default path from $PATH is deter‐
875 mined.
876 We now have a starting set of directories. The first way to change
878 this set is by adding names of operating systems. This assumes that
879 man pages for several operating systems are installed. This is not al‐
880 ways true. The names of such operating systems can be provided by 3
881 methods.
882 * The environment variable $SYSTEM has the lowest precedence.
884 * This can be overridden by an option in $MANOPT.
886 * This again is overridden by the command line option --systems.
888 Several names of operating systems can be given by appending their
890 names, separated by a comma.
891 The man path is changed by appending each system name as subdirectory
893 at the end of each directory of the set. No directory of the man path
894 set is kept. But if no system name is specified the man path is left
895 unchanged.
896 After this, the actual set of directories can be changed by language
898 information. This assumes that there exist man pages in different lan‐
899 guages. The wanted language can be chosen by several methods.
900 * Environment variable $LANG.
902 * This is overridden by $LC_MESSAGES.
904 * This is overridden by $LC_ALL.
906 * This can be overridden by providing an option in $MANOPT.
908 * All these environment variables are overridden by the command line
910 option --locale.
911 The default language can be specified by specifying one of the pseudo-
913 language parameters C or POSIX. This is like deleting a formerly given
914 language information. The man pages in the default language are usual‐
915 ly in English.
916 Of course, the language name is determined by man. In GNU man, it is
918 specified in the POSIX 1003.1 based format:
919 <language>[_<territory>[.<character-set>[,<version>]]],
921 but the two-letter code in <language> is sufficient for most purposes.
923 If for a complicated language formulation no man pages are found
924 groffer searches the country part consisting of these first two charac‐
925 ters as well.
926 The actual directory set is copied thrice. The language name is ap‐
928 pended as subdirectory to each directory in the first copy of the actu‐
929 al directory set (this is only done when a language information is giv‐
930 en). Then the 2-letter abbreviation of the language name is appended
931 as subdirectories to the second copy of the directory set (this is only
932 done when the given language name has more than 2 letters). The third
933 copy of the directory set is kept unchanged (if no language information
934 is given this is the kept directory set). These maximally 3 copies are
935 appended to get the new directory set.
936 We now have a complete set of directories to work with. In each of
938 these directories, the man files are separated in sections. The name
939 of a section is represented by a single character, a digit between 1
940 and 9, or the character o or n, in this order.
941 For each available section, a subdirectory man<section> exists contain‐
943 ing all man files for this section, where <section> is a single charac‐
944 ter as described before. Each man file in a section directory has the
945 form man<section>/<name>.<section>[<extension>][.<compression>], where
946 <extension> and <compression> are optional. <name> is the name of the
947 man page that is also specified as filespec argument on the command
948 line.
949 The extension is an addition to the section. This postfix acts like a
951 subsection. An extension occurs only in the file name, not in name of
952 the section subdirectory. It can be specified on the command line.
953 On the other hand, the compression is just an information on how the
955 file is compressed. This is not important for the user, such that it
956 cannot be specified on the command line.
957 There are 4 methods to specify a section on the command line:
959 * Environment variable $MANSECT
961 * Command line option --sections
963 * Appendix to the name argument in the form <name>.<section>
965 * Preargument before the name argument in the form <section> <name>
967 It is also possible to specify several sections by appending the single
969 characters separated by colons. One can imagine that this means to re‐
970 strict the man page search to only some sections. The multiple sec‐
971 tions are only possible for $MANSECT and --sections.
972 If no section is specified all sections are searched one after the oth‐
974 er in the given order, starting with section 1, until a suitable file
975 is found.
976 There are 4 methods to specify an extension on the command line. But
978 it is not necessary to provide the whole extension name, some abbrevia‐
979 tion is good enough in most cases.
980 * Environment variable $EXTENSION
982 * Command line option --extension
984 * Appendix to the <name>.<section> argument in the form <name>.<sec‐
986 tion><extension>
987 * Preargument before the name argument in the form <section><extension>
989 <name>
990 For further details on man page searching, see man(1).
992 Examples of man files
994 /usr/share/man/man1/groff.1
995 This is an uncompressed file for the man page groff in sec‐
996 tion 1. It can be called by
997 sh# groffer groff
998 No section is specified here, so all sections should be
999 searched, but as section 1 is searched first this file will be
1000 found first. The file name is composed of the following compo‐
1001 nents. /usr/share/man/ must be part of the man path; the subdi‐
1002 rectory man1/ and the part .1 stand for the section; groff is
1003 the name of the man page.
1004 /usr/local/share/man/man7/groff.7.gz
1006 The file name is composed of the following components.
1007 /usr/local/share/man must be part of the man path; the subdirec‐
1008 tory man7/ and the part .7 stand for the section; groff is the
1009 name of the man page; the final part .gz stands for a compres‐
1010 sion with gzip(1). As the section is not the first one it must
1011 be specified as well. This can be done by one of the following
1012 commands.
1013 sh# groffer groff.7
1014 sh# groffer 7 groff
1015 sh# groffer --sections=7 groff
1016 /usr/local/man/man1/ctags.1emacs21.bz2
1018 Here /usr/local/man must be in man path; the subdirectory man1/
1019 and the file name part .1 stand for section 1; the name of the
1020 man page is ctags; the section has an extension emacs21; and the
1021 file is compressed as .bz2 with bzip2(1). The file can be
1022 viewed with one of the following commands
1023 sh# groffer ctags.1e
1024 sh# groffer 1e ctags
1025 sh# groffer --extension=e --sections=1 ctags
1026 where e works as an abbreviation for the extension emacs21.
1027 /usr/man/linux/de/man7/man.7.Z
1029 The directory /usr/man is now part of the man path; then there
1030 is a subdirectory for an operating system name linux/; next
1031 comes a subdirectory de/ for the German language; the section
1032 names man7 and .7 are known so far; man is the name of the
1033 man page; and .Z signifies the compression that can be handled
1034 by gzip(1). We want now show how to provide several values for
1035 some options. That is possible for sections and operating sys‐
1036 tem names. So we use as sections 5 and 7 and as system names
1037 linux and aix. The command is then
1038 sh# groffer --locale=de --sections=5:7 --systems=linux,aix man
1040 sh# LANG=de MANSECT=5:7 SYSTEM=linux,aix groffer man
1041
1043 The program has a decompression facility. If standard input or a file
1044 that was retrieved from the command line parameters is compressed with
1045 a format that is supported by either gzip(1) or bzip2(1) it is decom‐
1046 pressed on-the-fly. This includes the GNU .gz, .bz2, and the tradi‐
1047 tional .Z compression. The program displays the concatenation of all
1048 decompressed input in the sequence that was specified on the command
1049 line.
1050
1052 The groffer program supports many system variables, most of them by
1053 courtesy of other programs. All environment variables of groff(1) and
1054 GNU man(1) and some standard system variables are honored.
1055 Native groffer Variables
1057 $GROFFER_OPT
1058 Store options for a run of groffer. The options specified in
1059 this variable are overridden by the options given on the command
1060 line. The content of this variable is run through the shell
1061 builtin `eval'; so arguments containing white-space or special
1062 shell characters should be quoted. Do not forget to export this
1063 variable, otherwise it does not exist during the run of groffer.
1064 System Variables
1066 The following variables have a special meaning for groffer.
1067 $DISPLAY
1069 If this variable is set this indicates that the X Window system
1070 is running. Testing this variable decides on whether graphical
1071 or text output is generated. This variable should not be
1072 changed by the user carelessly, but it can be used to start the
1073 graphical groffer on a remote X Window terminal. For example,
1074 depending on your system, groffer can be started on the second
1075 monitor by the command
1076 sh# DISPLAY=:0.1 groffer what.ever &
1078 $LC_ALL
1080 $LC_MESSAGES
1081 $LANG If one of these variables is set (in the above sequence), its
1082 content is interpreted as the locale, the language to be used,
1083 especially when retrieving man pages. A locale name is typi‐
1084 cally of the form language[_territory[.codeset[@modifier]]],
1085 where language is an ISO 639 language code, territory is an ISO
1086 3166 country code, and codeset is a character set or encoding
1087 identifier like ISO-8859-1 or UTF-8; see setlocale(3). The lo‐
1088 cale values C and POSIX stand for the default, i.e. the man page
1089 directories without a language prefix. This is the same behav‐
1090 ior as when all 3 variables are unset.
1091 $PAGER This variable can be used to set the pager for the tty output.
1093 For example, to disable the use of a pager completely set this
1094 variable to the cat(1) program
1095 sh# PAGER=cat groffer anything
1097 $PATH All programs within the groffer script are called without a
1100 fixed path. Thus this environment variable determines the set
1101 of programs used within the run of groffer.
1102 Groff Variables
1104 The groffer program internally calls groff, so all environment vari‐
1105 ables documented in groff(1) are internally used within groffer as
1106 well. The following variable has a direct meaning for the groffer pro‐
1107 gram.
1108 $GROFF_TMPDIR
1110 If the value of this variable is an existing, writable direc‐
1111 tory, groffer uses it for storing its temporary files, just as
1112 groff does. See the groff(1) man page for more details on the
1113 location of temporary files.
1114 Man Variables
1116 Parts of the functionality of the man program were implemented in
1117 groffer; support for all environment variables documented in man(1) was
1118 added to groffer, but the meaning was slightly modified due to the dif‐
1119 ferent approach in groffer; but the user interface is the same. The
1120 man environment variables can be overwritten by options provided with
1121 $MANOPT, which in turn is overwritten by the command line.
1122 $EXTENSION
1124 Restrict the search for man pages to files having this exten‐
1125 sion. This is overridden by option --extension; see there for
1126 details.
1127 $MANOPT
1129 This variable contains options as a preset for man(1). As not
1130 all of these are relevant for groffer only the essential parts
1131 of its value are extracted. The options specified in this vari‐
1132 able overwrite the values of the other environment variables
1133 that are specific to man. All options specified in this vari‐
1134 able are overridden by the options given on the command line.
1135 $MANPATH
1137 If set, this variable contains the directories in which the
1138 man page trees are stored. This is overridden by option
1139 --manpath.
1140 $MANSECT
1142 If this is a colon separated list of section names, the search
1143 for man pages is restricted to those manual sections in that
1144 order. This is overridden by option --sections.
1145 $SYSTEM
1147 If this is set to a comma separated list of names these are
1148 interpreted as man page trees for different operating systems.
1149 This variable can be overwritten by option --systems; see there
1150 for details.
1151 The environment variable $MANROFFSEQ is ignored by groffer because the
1153 necessary preprocessors are determined automatically.
1154
1156 The groffer program can be preconfigured by two configuration files.
1157 /etc/groff/groffer.conf
1159 System-wide configuration file for groffer.
1160 $HOME/.groff/groffer.conf
1162 User-specific configuration file for groffer, where $HOME
1163 denotes the user's home directory. This file is called after
1164 the system-wide configuration file to enable overriding by the
1165 user.
1166 Both files are handled for the configuration, but the configuration
1168 file in /etc comes first; it is overwritten by the configuration file
1169 in the home directory; both configuration files are overwritten by the
1170 environment variable $GROFFER_OPT; everything is overwritten by the
1171 command line arguments.
1172 The configuration files contain options that should be called as
1174 default for every groffer run. These options are written in lines such
1175 that each contains either a long option, a short option, or a short
1176 option cluster; each with or without an argument. So each line with
1177 configuration information starts with a minus character `-'; a line
1178 with a long option starts with two minus characters `--', a line with a
1179 short option or short option cluster starts with a single minus `-'.
1180 The option names in the configuration files may not be abbreviated,
1182 they must be exact.
1183 The argument for a long option can be separated from the option name
1185 either by an equal sign `=' or by whitespace, i.e. one or several space
1186 or tab characters. An argument for a short option or short option
1187 cluster can be directly appended to the option name or separated by
1188 whitespace. The end of an argument is the end of the line. It is not
1189 allowed to use a shell environment variable in an option name or argu‐
1190 ment.
1191 It is not necessary to use quotes in an option or argument, except for
1193 empty arguments. An empty argument can be provided by appending a pair
1194 of quotes to the separating equal sign or whitespace; with a short
1195 option, the separator can be omitted as well. For a long option with a
1196 separating equal sign `=', the pair of quotes can be omitted, thus end‐
1197 ing the line with the separating equal sign. All other quote charac‐
1198 ters are cancelled internally.
1199 In the configuration files, arbitrary whitespace is allowed at the
1201 beginning of each line, it is just ignored. Each whitespace within a
1202 line is replaced by a single space character ` ' internally.
1203 All lines of the configuration lines that do not start with a minus
1205 character are ignored, such that comments starting with `#' are possi‐
1206 ble. So there are no shell commands in the configuration files.
1207 As an example, consider the following configuration file that can be
1209 used either in /etc/groff/groffer.conf or ~/.groff/groffer.conf .
1210 # groffer configuration file
1212 #
1213 # groffer options that are used in each call of groffer
1214 --foreground=DarkBlue
1215 --resolution=100
1216 --viewer=gxditview -geometry 900x1200
1217 --viewer xpdf -Z 150
1218 The lines starting with # are just ignored, so they act as command
1220 lines. This configuration sets four groffer options (the lines start‐
1221 ing with `-'). This has the following effects:
1222 * Use a text color of DarkBlue in all viewers that support this, such
1224 as gxditview.
1225 * Use a resolution of 100dpi in all viewers that support this, such as
1227 gxditview. By this, the default device in x mode is set to X100.
1228 * Force gxditview(1) as the x-mode viewer using the geometry option for
1230 setting the width to 900px and the height to 1200px. This geometry
1231 is suitable for a resolution of 100dpi.
1232 * Use xpdf(1) as the pdf-mode viewer with the argument -Z 150.
1234
1236 The usage of groffer is very easy. Usually, it is just called with a
1237 file name or man page. The following examples, however, show that
1238 groffer has much more fancy capabilities.
1239 sh# groffer /usr/local/share/doc/groff/meintro.ms.gz
1241 Decompress, format and display the compressed file meintro.ms.gz in the
1243 directory /usr/local/share/doc/groff, using the standard viewer
1244 gxditview as graphical viewer when in X Window, or the less(1) pager
1245 program when not in X Window.
1246 sh# groffer groff
1248 If the file ./groff exists use it as input. Otherwise interpret the
1250 argument as a search for the man page named groff in the smallest pos‐
1251 sible man section, being section 1 in this case.
1252 sh# groffer man:groff
1254 search for the man page of groff even when the file ./groff exists.
1256 sh# groffer groff.7
1258 sh# groffer 7 groff
1259 search the man page of groff in man section 7. This section search
1261 works only for a digit or a single character from a small set.
1262 sh# groffer fb.modes
1264 If the file ./fb.modes does not exist interpret this as a search for
1266 the man page of fb.modes. As the extension modes is not a single char‐
1267 acter in classical section style the argument is not split to a search
1268 for fb.
1269 sh# groffer groff ’troff(1)’ man:roff
1271 The arguments that are not existing files are looked-up as the follow‐
1273 ing man pages: groff (automatic search, should be found in man sec‐
1274 tion 1), troff (in section 1), and roff (in the section with the lowest
1275 number, being 7 in this case). The quotes around ’troff(1)’ are neces‐
1276 sary because the parentheses are special shell characters; escaping
1277 them with a backslash character \( and \) would be possible, too. The
1278 formatted files are concatenated and displayed in one piece.
1279 sh# LANG=de groffer --man --viewer=galeon ls
1281 Retrieve the German man page (language de) for the ls program, decom‐
1283 press it, format it to html format (www mode) and view the result in
1284 the web browser galeon. The option --man guarantees that the man page
1285 is retrieved, even when a local file ls exists in the actual directory.
1286 sh# groffer --source 'man:roff(7)'
1288 Get the man page called roff in man section 7, decompress it, and print
1290 its unformatted content, its source code.
1291 sh# groffer --de-p --in --ap
1293 This is a set of abbreviated arguments, it is determined as
1295 sh# groffer --debug-params --intermediate-output --apropos
1297 sh# cat file.gz | groffer -Z -mfoo
1300 The file file.gz is sent to standard input, this is decompressed, and
1302 then this is transported to the groff intermediate output mode without
1303 post-processing (groff option -Z), using macro package foo (groff
1304 option -m).
1305 sh# echo '\f[CB]WOW!' |
1307 > groffer --x --bg red --fg yellow --geometry 200x100 -
1308 Display the word WOW! in a small window in constant-width bold font,
1310 using color yellow on red background.
1311
1313 The groffer program is written in Perl, the Perl version during writing
1314 was v5.8.8.
1315 groffer provides its own parser for command line arguments that is com‐
1317 patible to both POSIX getopts(1) and GNU getopt(1). It can handle
1318 option arguments and file names containing white space and a large set
1319 of special characters. The following standard types of options are
1320 supported.
1321 * The option consisting of a single minus - refers to standard input.
1323 * A single minus followed by characters refers to a single character
1325 option or a combination thereof; for example, the groffer short
1326 option combination -Qmfoo is equivalent to -Q -m foo.
1327 * Long options are options with names longer than one character; they
1329 are always preceded by a double minus. An option argument can either
1330 go to the next command line argument or be appended with an equal
1331 sign to the argument; for example, --long=arg is equivalent to
1332 --long arg.
1333 * An argument of -- ends option parsing; all further command line argu‐
1335 ments are interpreted as filespec parameters, i.e. file names or con‐
1336 structs for searching man pages).
1337 * All command line arguments that are neither options nor option argu‐
1339 ments are interpreted as filespec parameters and stored until option
1340 parsing has finished. For example, the command line
1341 sh# groffer file1 -a -o arg file2
1343 is equivalent to
1345 sh# groffer -a -o arg -- file1 file2
1347 The free mixing of options and filespec parameters follows the GNU
1350 principle. That does not fulfill the strange option behavior of POSIX
1351 that ends option processing as soon as the first non-option argument
1352 has been reached. The end of option processing can be forced by the
1353 option `--' anyway.
1354
1356 Report bugs to the bug-groff mailing list ⟨bug-groff@gnu.org⟩. Include
1357 a complete, self-contained example that will allow the bug to be repro‐
1358 duced, and say which version of groffer you are using.
1359 You can also use the groff mailing list ⟨groff@gnu.org⟩, but you must
1361 first subscribe to this list. You can do that by visiting the groff
1362 mailing list web page ⟨http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/groff⟩.
1363 See groff(1) for information on availability.
1365
1367 groff(1), troff(1)
1368 Details on the options and environment variables available in
1369 groff; all of them can be used with groffer.
1370 grog(1)
1372 This program tries to guess the necessary groff command line
1373 options from the input and the groffer options.
1374 groff(7)
1376 Documentation of the groff language.
1377 groff_char(7)
1379 Documentation on the groff characters, special characters, and
1380 glyphs..
1381 groff_tmac(5)
1383 Documentation on the groff macro files.
1384 groff_out(5)
1386 Documentation on the groff intermediate output before the run of
1387 a postprocessor. (ditroff output). This can be run by the
1388 groff or groffer option -Z.
1389 man(1) The standard program to display man pages. The information
1391 there is only useful if it is the man page for GNU man. Then it
1392 documents the options and environment variables that are sup‐
1393 ported by groffer.
1394 gxditview(1)
1396 xditview(1x)
1397 Viewers for groffer's x mode.
1398 kpdf(1)
1400 kghostview(1)
1401 evince(1)
1402 ggv(1)
1403 gv(1)
1404 ghostview(1)
1405 gs(1) Viewers for groffer's ps mode.
1406 kpdf(1)
1408 acroread(1)
1409 evince(1)
1410 xpdf(1)
1411 gpdf(1)
1412 kghostview(1)
1413 ggv(1) Viewers for groffer's pdf mode.
1414 kdvi(1), xdvi(1), dvilx(1)
1416 Viewers for groffer's dvi mode.
1417 konqueror(1)
1419 epiphany(1)
1420 firefox(1)
1421 mozilla(1)
1422 netscape(1)
1423 lynx(1)
1424 Web-browsers for groffer's html or www mode.
1425 less(1)
1427 more(1)
1428 Standard pager program for the tty mode.
1429 gzip(1)
1431 bzip2(1)
1432 xz(1) The decompression programs supported by groffer.
1433
1435 Copyright © 2001-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1436 This file is part of groffer, which is part of groff, a free software
1438 project.
1439 You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU
1441 General Public License version 2 as published by the Free Software
1442 Foundation.
1443 The license text is available in the internet at
1445 ⟨http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html⟩.
1446
1448 This file was written by Bernd Warken ⟨groff-bernd.warken-72@web.de⟩.
1449Groff Version 1.22.3 4 November 2014 GROFFER(1)