1GROG(1)                     General Commands Manual                    GROG(1)
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NAME

6       grog - guess options for a following groff command
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SYNOPSIS

9       grog [-C] [-T device] [--run] [--warnings] [--ligatures] [groff-option
10            ...] [--] [filespec ...]
11
12       grog -h
13       grog --help
14
15       grog -v
16       grog --version
17

DESCRIPTION

19       grog reads the input (file names or standard input) and  guesses  which
20       of  the groff(1) options are needed to perform the input with the groff
21       program.  A suitable device is now always written as -Tdevice including
22       the groff default as -T ps.
23
24       The  corresponding  groff command is usually displayed in standard out‐
25       put.  With the option --run, the generated line is output into standard
26       error  and  the  generated groff command is run on the standard output.
27       groffer(1) relies on a perfectly running groff(1).
28

OPTIONS

30       The option -v or --version prints information on  the  version  number.
31       Also  -h or --help prints usage information.  Both of these options au‐
32       tomatically end the grog program.  Other options are  thenignored,  and
33       no  groff  command  line is generated.  The following 3 options are the
34       only grog options,
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36       -C     this option means enabling the groff compatibility  mode,  which
37              is also transfered to the generated groff command line.
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39       --ligatures
40              this  option forces to include the arguments -P-y -PU within the
41              generated groff command line.
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43       --run  with this option, the command line is output at  standard  error
44              and then run on the computer.
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46       --warnings
47              with  this option, some more warnings are output to standard er‐
48              ror.
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50       All other specified short options (words starting with one minus  char‐
51       acter  -)  are  interpreted as groff options or option clusters with or
52       without argument.  No space is allowed between options and their  argu‐
53       ment.   Except  from  the -marg options, all options will be passed on,
54       i.e. they are included unchanged in the command for the output  without
55       effecting the work of grog.
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57       A  filespec  argument  can  either be the name of an existing file or a
58       single minus - to mean standard input.  If  no  filespec  is  specified
59       standard input is read automatically.
60

DETAILS

62       grog reads all filespec parameters as a whole.  It tries to guess which
63       of the following groff options are required for running the input under
64       groff: -e, -g, -G, -j, -p, -R, -s, -t (preprocessors); and -man, -mdoc,
65       -mdoc-old, -me, -mm, -mom, and -ms (macro packages).
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67       The guessed groff command including those options and the  found  file‐
68       spec parameters is put on the standard output.
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70       It  is possible to specify arbitrary groff options on the command line.
71       These are passed on the output without change, except for the -marg op‐
72       tions.
73
74       The groff program has trouble when the wrong -marg option or several of
75       these options are specified.  In these cases, grog will print an  error
76       message  and exit with an error code.  It is better to specify no -marg
77       option.  Because such an option is only accepted and passed  when  grog
78       does not find any of these options or the same option is found.
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80       If  several  different -marg options are found by grog an error message
81       is produced and the program is terminated with an error code.  But  the
82       output is written with the wrong options nevertheless.
83
84       Remember that it is not necessary to determine a macro package.  A roff
85       file can also be written in the groff language without any macro  pack‐
86       age.  grog will produce an output without an -marg option.
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88       As  groff  also  works  with pure text files without any roff requests,
89       grog cannot be used to identify a file to be a roff file.
90
91       The groffer(1) program heavily depends on a working grog.
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EXAMPLES

94       Calling
95              grog meintro.me
96       results in
97              groff -me meintro.me
98       So grog recognized that the file meintro.me is  written  with  the  -me
99       macro package.
100       On the other hand,
101              grog pic.ms
102       outputs
103              groff -p -t -e -ms pic.ms
104       Besides  determining  the  macro  package -ms, grog recognized that the
105       file pic.ms additionally needs -pte, the combination of -p for pic,  -t
106       for tbl, and -e for eqn.
107       If both of the former example files are combined by the command
108              grog meintro.me pic.ms
109       an  error  message  is sent to standard error because groff cannot work
110       with two different macro packages:
111              grog: error: there are several macro packages: -me -ms
112       Additionally the corresponding output with the wrong options is printed
113       to standard output:
114              groff -pte -me -ms meintro.me pic.ms
115       But the program is terminated with an error code.  The call of
116              grog -ksS -Tdvi grnexmpl.g
117       contains several groff options that are just passed on the output with‐
118       out any interface to grog.  These are the option cluster -ksS  consist‐
119       ing of -k, -s, and -S; and the option -T with argument dvi.  The output
120       is
121              groff -k -s -S -Tdvi grnexmpl.g
122       so no additional option was added by grog.   As  no  option  -marg  was
123       found by grog this file does not use a macro package.
124

AUTHORS

126       grog was originally written by James Clark.  The current Perl implemen‐
127       tation was written by Bernd Warken ⟨groff-bernd.warken-72@web.de⟩  with
128       contributions  from Ralph Corderoy, and is maintained by Werner Lemberg
129       ⟨wl@gnu.org⟩.
130

SEE ALSO

132       groff(1), groffer(1)
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136groff 1.22.4                     22 July 2021                          GROG(1)
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