1GROFFER(1) General Commands Manual GROFFER(1)
2
6 groffer - display groff files and man pages on X and tty
7
9 groffer [mode-option ...] [groff-option ...] [man-option ...] [X-option
10 ...] [--] [filespec ...]
11 groffer -h
13 groffer --help
14 groffer -v
16 groffer --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 X Window System-based groff program
38 gxditview(1), each PostScript, PDF, or DVI display program, a web
39 browser by generating HTML or XHTML in www mode, or several text modes
40 in text terminals.
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,...] [--dvi]
63 [--groff] [--html] [--latin1] [--mode display_mode] [--pdf]
64 [--pdf2] [--ps] [--source] [--text] [--to-stdout] [--tty]
65 [--utf8] [--viewer prog] [--www] [--xhtml] [--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 options mapped to X Window System Toolkit Intrinsics 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 op‐
140 tions 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, all
152 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 op‐
168 tions. 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 xhtml, mode x, and mode dvi in
171 the X Window System with different viewers and mode tty with device
172 utf8 under less on a terminal; other modes are tested if the programs
173 for the main default mode do not exist.
174 In the X Window System, many programs create their own window when
176 called. groffer can run these viewers as an independent program in the
177 background. As this does not work in text mode on a terminal (tty)
178 there must be a way to know which viewers are X Window System-based
179 graphical programs. The groffer script has a small amount of informa‐
180 tion on some viewer names. If a viewer argument of the command-line
181 chooses an element that is recognized as an X Window System-based pro‐
182 gram in this list, it is treated as a viewer that can run in the back‐
183 ground. Unrecognized viewers are not run 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 restart
197 option processing using only the rest of the command line.
198 --default-modes mode1,mode2,...
200 Set the sequence of modes for auto mode to the comma separated
201 list given in the argument. See --mode for details on modes.
202 Display in the default manner; actually, this means to try the
203 modes x, ps, and tty in this sequence.
204 --dvi Equivalent to --mode=dvi. Known DVI viewers for the X Window
206 System include xdvi(1) and dvilx(1).
207 --groff
209 Equivalent to --mode=groff.
210 --html Equivalent to --mode=html.
212 --mode value
214 Set the display mode. The following mode values are recognized:
215 auto Select the automatic determination of the display mode.
217 The sequence of modes that are tried can be set with the
218 --default-modes option. Useful for restoring the
219 default mode when a different mode was specified before.
220 dvi Display formatted input in a DVI viewer program. By de‐
222 fault, the formatted input is displayed with the xdvi(1)
223 program.
224 groff After the file determination, switch groffer to process
226 the input like groff(1) would do. This disables the
227 groffer viewing features.
228 html Translate the input into HTML format and display the re‐
230 sult in a web browser program. By default, the existence
231 of a sequence of standard web browsers is tested, start‐
232 ing with konqueror(1) and mozilla(1). The text HTML
233 viewer is lynx(1). By default, the existence of a se‐
234 quence of standard web browsers is tested, starting with
235 konqueror(1) and mozilla(1). The text HTML viewer is
236 lynx(1).
237 pdf Transform roff input files into a PDF file by using the
239 groff (1) device -Tpdf. This is the default PDF genera‐
240 tor. The generated PDF file is displayed with suitable
241 viewer programs, such as okular(1).
242 pdf2 This is the traditional pdf mode. Sometimes this mode
244 produces more correct output than the default PDF mode.
245 By default, the input is formatted by groff using the
246 PostScript device, then it is transformed into the PDF
247 file format using gs(1), or ps2pdf(1). If that's not
248 possible, the PostScript mode (ps) is used instead. Fi‐
249 nally it is displayed using different viewer programs.
250 ps Display formatted input in a PostScript viewer program.
252 By default, the formatted input is displayed in one of
253 many viewer programs.
254 text Format in a groff text mode and write the result to stan‐
256 dard output without a pager or viewer program. The text
257 device, latin1 by default, can be chosen with option -T.
258 tty Format in a groff text mode and write the result to stan‐
260 dard output using a text pager program, even when in the
261 X Window System.
262 www Equivalent to --mode=html.
264 x Display the formatted input in a native roff viewer. By
266 default, the formatted input is displayed with the
267 gxditview(1) program being distributed together with
268 groff. But the legacy X Window System application
269 xditview(1) can also be chosen with the option --viewer.
270 The default resolution is 75dpi, but 100dpi are also pos‐
271 sible. The default groff device for the resolution of
272 75dpi is X75-12, for 100dpi it is X100. The correspond‐
273 ing groff intermediate output for the actual device is
274 generated and the result is displayed. For a resolution
275 of 100dpi, the default width of the geometry of the dis‐
276 play program is chosen to 850dpi.
277 X Equivalent to --mode=x.
279 xhtml Translate the input into XHTML format, which is an XML
281 version of HTML. Then display the result in a web
282 browser program, mostly the known HTML viewers.
283 The following modes do not use the groffer viewing features.
285 They are only interesting for advanced applications.
286 groff Generate device output with plain groff without using the
288 special viewing features of groffer. If no device was
289 specified by option -T the groff default ps is assumed.
290 source Output the roff source code of the input files without
292 further processing.
293 --pdf Equivalent to --mode=pdf.
295 --pdf2 Equivalent to --mode=pdf2.
296 --ps Equivalent to --mode=ps. Common PostScript viewers include
298 okular(1), evince(1), gv(1), ghostview(1), and gs(1), In each
299 case, arguments can be provided additionally.
300 --source
302 Equivalent to --mode=source.
303 --text Equivalent to --mode=text.
305 --to-stdout
307 The file for the chosen mode is generated and its content is
308 printed to standard output. It will not be displayed in graphi‐
309 cal mode.
310 --tty Equivalent to --mode=tty. The standard pager is less(1). This
312 option is equivalent to man option --pager=prog. The option ar‐
313 gument can be a file name or a program to be searched in $PATH;
314 arguments can be provided additionally.
315 --viewer prog
317 Choose a viewer program for actual device or mode. This can be
318 a file name or a program to be searched in $PATH; arguments can
319 be provided additionally.
320 --www Equivalent to --mode=html.
322 --X | --x
324 Equivalent to --mode=x. Suitable viewer programs are
325 gxditview(1) which is the default and xditview(1).
326 -- Signals the end of option processing; all remaining arguments
328 are interpreted as filespec parameters.
329 Besides these, groffer accepts all short options that are valid for the
331 groff(1) program. All non-groffer options are sent unmodified via grog
332 to groff. So postprocessors, macro packages, compatibility with clas‐
333 sical troff, and much more can be manually specified.
334 Options related to groff
336 All short options of groffer are compatible with the short options of
337 groff(1). The following of groff options have either an additional
338 special meaning within groffer or make sense for normal usage.
339 Because of the special outputting behavior of the groff option -Z
341 groffer was designed to be switched into groff mode; the groffer view‐
342 ing features are disabled there. The other groff options do not switch
343 the mode, but allow to customize the formatting process.
344 --a This generates an ASCII approximation of output in the
346 text modes. That could be important when the text pager has
347 problems with control sequences in tty mode.
348 --m file
350 Add file as a groff macro file. This is useful in case it can‐
351 not be recognized automatically.
352 --P opt_or_arg
354 Send the argument opt_or_arg as an option or option argument to
355 the actual groff postprocessor.
356 --T devname | --device devname
358 This option determines groff's output device. The most impor‐
359 tant devices are the text output devices for referring to the
360 different character sets, such as ascii, utf8, latin1, utf8, and
361 others. Each of these arguments switches groffer into a
362 text mode using this device, to mode tty if the actual mode is
363 not a text mode. The following devname arguments are mapped to
364 the corresponding groffer --mode=devname option: dvi, html,
365 xhtml, and ps. All X* arguments are mapped to mode x. Each
366 other devname argument switches to mode groff using this device.
367 --X is equivalent to groff -X. It displays the groff intermediate
369 output with gxditview. As the quality is relatively bad this
370 option is deprecated; use --X instead because the x mode uses an
371 X* device for a better display.
372 -Z | --intermediate-output | --ditroff
374 Switch into groff mode and format the input with the groff in‐
375 termediate output without postprocessing; see groff_out(5).
376 This is equivalent to option --ditroff of man, which can be used
377 as well.
378 All other groff options are supported by groffer, but they are just
380 transparently transferred to groff without any intervention. The op‐
381 tions that are not explicitly handled by groffer are transparently
382 passed to groff. Therefore these transparent options are not docu‐
383 mented here, but in groff(1). Due to the automatism in groffer, none
384 of these groff options should be needed, except for advanced usage.
385 Options for man pages
387 --apropos
388 Start the apropos(1) command or facility of man(1) for searching
389 the filespec arguments within all man page descriptions. Each
390 filespec argument is taken for search as it is; section specific
391 parts are not handled, such that 7 groff searches for the two
392 arguments 7 and groff, with a large result; for the filespec
393 groff.7 nothing will be found. The language locale is handled
394 only when the called programs do support this; the GNU apropos
395 and man -k do not. The display differs from the apropos program
396 by the following concepts:
397 * Construct a groff frame similar to a man page to the output of
399 apropos,
400 * each filespec argument is searched on its own.
402 * The restriction by --sections is handled as well,
404 * wildcard characters are allowed and handled without a further
406 option.
407 --apropos-data
409 Show only the apropos descriptions for data documents, these are
410 the man(7) sections 4, 5, and 7. Direct section declarations
411 are ignored, wildcards are accepted.
412 --apropos-devel
414 Show only the apropos descriptions for development documents,
415 these are the man(7) sections 2, 3, and 9. Direct section dec‐
416 larations are ignored, wildcards are accepted.
417 --apropos-progs
419 Show only the apropos descriptions for documents on programs,
420 these are the man(7) sections 1, 6, and 8. Direct section dec‐
421 larations are ignored, wildcards are accepted.
422 --whatis
424 For each filespec argument search all man pages and display
425 their description — or say that it is not a man page. This is
426 written from anew, so it differs from man's whatis output by the
427 following concepts
428 * each retrieved file name is added,
430 * local files are handled as well,
432 * the language and system locale is supported,
434 * the display is framed by a groff output format similar to a
436 man page,
437 * wildcard characters are allowed without a further option.
439 The following options were added to groffer for choosing whether the
441 file name arguments are interpreted as names for local files or as a
442 search pattern for man pages. The default is looking up for local
443 files.
444 --man Check the non-option command-line arguments (filespecs) first on
446 being man pages, then whether they represent an existing file.
447 By default, a filespec is first tested whether it is an existing
448 file.
449 --no-man | --local-file
451 Do not check for man pages. --local-file is the corresponding
452 man option.
453 --no-special
455 Disable former calls of --all, --apropos*, and --whatis.
456 Long options taken over from GNU man
458 The long options of groffer were synchronized with the long options of
459 GNU man. All long options of GNU man are recognized, but not all of
460 these options are important to groffer, so most of them are just ig‐
461 nored. These ignored man options are --catman, --troff, and --update.
462 In the following, the man options that have a special meaning for
464 groffer are documented.
465 If your system has GNU man installed the full set of long and short op‐
467 tions of the GNU man program can be passed via the environment variable
468 MANOPT; see man(1).
469 --all In searching man pages, retrieve all suitable documents instead
471 of only one.
472 -7 | --ascii
474 In text modes, display ASCII translation of special characters
475 for critical environment. This is equivalent to groff
476 -mtty_char; see groff_tmac(5).
477 --ditroff
479 Produce groff intermediate output. This is equivalent to
480 groffer -Z.
481 --extension suffix
483 Restrict man page search to file names that have suffix appended
484 to their section element. For example, in the file name
485 /usr/share/man/man3/terminfo.3ncurses.gz the man page extension
486 is ncurses.
487 --locale language
489 Set the language for man pages. This has the same effect, but
490 overwrites $LANG.
491 --location
493 Print the location of the retrieved files to standard error.
494 --no-location
496 Do not display the location of retrieved files; this resets a
497 former call to --location. This was added by groffer.
498 --manpath 'dir1:dir2:...'
500 Use the specified search path for retrieving man pages instead
501 of the program defaults. If the argument is set to the empty
502 string "" the search for man page is disabled.
503 --pager
505 Set the pager program in tty mode; default is less. This can be
506 set with --viewer.
507 --sections sec1:sec2:...
509 Restrict searching for man pages to the given sections, a colon-
510 separated list.
511 --systems sys1,sys2,...
513 Search for man pages for the given operating systems; the argu‐
514 ment systems is a comma-separated list.
515 --where
517 Equivalent to --location.
518 X Window System Toolkit Intrinsics Options
520 The following long options were adapted from the corresponding X Window
521 System Toolkit Intrinsics options. groffer will pass them to the actu‐
522 al viewer program if it is an X Window System program. Otherwise these
523 options are ignored.
524 Unfortunately these options use the old style of a single minus for
526 long options. For groffer that was changed to the standard with using
527 a double minus for long options, for example, groffer uses the option
528 --font for the X Window System Toolkit Intrinsics option -font.
529 See X(7) and the manual X Toolkit Intrinsics – C Language Interface for
531 more details on these options and their arguments.
532 --background color
534 Set the background color of the viewer window.
535 --bd pixels
537 This is equivalent to --bordercolor.
538 --bg color
540 This is equivalent to --background.
541 --bw pixels
543 This is equivalent to --borderwidth.
544 --bordercolor pixels
546 Specifies the color of the border surrounding the viewer window.
547 --borderwidth pixels
549 Specifies the width in pixels of the border surrounding the
550 viewer window.
551 --display X-display
553 Set the X Window System display on which the viewer program
554 shall be started. See section “Display Names” in X(7) for the
555 syntax of the argument.
556 --foreground color
558 Set the foreground color of the viewer window.
559 --fg color
561 This is equivalent to --foreground.
562 --fn font_name
564 This is equivalent to --font.
565 --font font_name
567 Set the font used by the viewer window. The argument is an X
568 Window System font name.
569 --ft font_name
571 This is equivalent to --font.
572 --geometry size_pos
574 Set the geometry of the display window, that means its size and
575 its starting position. See section “Geometry Specifications” in
576 X(7) for the syntax of the argument.
577 --resolution value
579 Set X Window System resolution in dpi (dots per inch) in some
580 viewer programs. The only supported dpi values are 75 and 100.
581 Actually, the default resolution for groffer is set to 75dpi.
582 The resolution also sets the default device in mode x.
583 --rv Reverse foreground and background color of the viewer window.
585 --title 'some text'
587 Set the title for the viewer window.
588 --xrm 'resource'
590 Set the X Window System server resource to the given value.
591 Options for Development
593 --debug
594 Enable all debugging options --debug-type. The temporary files
595 are kept and not deleted, the grog output is printed, the name
596 of the temporary directory is printed, the displayed file names
597 are printed, and the parameters are printed.
598 --debug-filenames
600 Print the names of the files and man pages that are displayed by
601 groffer.
602 --debug-grog
604 Print the output of all grog commands.
605 --debug-keep
607 Enable two debugging informations. Print the name of the tempo‐
608 rary directory and keep the temporary files, do not delete them
609 during the run of groffer.
610 --debug-params
612 Print the parameters, as obtained from the configuration files,
613 from GROFFER_OPT, and the command-line arguments.
614 --debug-tmpdir
616 Print the name of the temporary directory.
617 --do-nothing
619 This is like --version, but without the output; no viewer is
620 started. This makes only sense in development.
621 --print=text
623 Just print the argument to standard error. This is good for pa‐
624 rameter check.
625 -V This is an advanced option for debugging only. Instead of dis‐
627 playing the formatted input, a lot of groffer specific informa‐
628 tion is printed to standard output:
629 * the output file name in the temporary directory,
631 * the display mode of the actual groffer run,
633 * the display program for viewing the output with its arguments,
635 * the active parameters from the config files, the arguments in
637 GROFFER_OPT, and the arguments of the command line,
638 * the pipeline that would be run by the groff program, but with‐
640 out executing it.
641 Other useful debugging options are the groff option -Z and
643 --mode=groff.
644 Filespec Arguments
646 A filespec parameter is an argument that is not an option or option ar‐
647 gument. In groffer, filespec parameters are a file name or a template
648 for searching man pages. These input sources are collected and com‐
649 posed into a single output file such as groff does.
650 The strange POSIX behavior to regard all arguments behind the first
652 non-option argument as filespec arguments is ignored. The GNU behavior
653 to recognize options even when mixed with filespec arguments is used
654 throughout. But, as usual, the double minus argument -- ends the op‐
655 tion handling and interprets all following arguments as filespec argu‐
656 ments; so the POSIX behavior can be easily adopted.
657 The options --apropos* have a special handling of filespec arguments.
659 Each argument is taken as a search scheme of its own. Also a regexp
660 (regular expression) can be used in the filespec. For example, groffer
661 --apropos '^gro.f$' searches groff in the man page name, while groffer
662 --apropos groff searches groff somewhere in the name or description of
663 the man pages.
664 All other parts of groffer, such as the normal display or the output
666 with --whatis have a different scheme for filespecs. No regular ex‐
667 pressions are used for the arguments. The filespec arguments are han‐
668 dled by the following scheme.
669 It is necessary to know that on each system the man pages are sorted
671 according to their content into several sections. The classical man
672 sections have a single-character name, either a digit from 1 to 9 or
673 one of the characters n or o.
674 This can optionally be followed by a string, the so-called extension.
676 The extension allows the storage of several man pages with the same
677 name in the same section. But the extension is only rarely used; usu‐
678 ally it is omitted. Then the extensions are searched automatically by
679 alphabet.
680 In the following, we use the name section_extension for a word that
682 consists of a single character section name or a section character that
683 is followed by an extension. Each filespec parameter can have one of
684 the following forms in decreasing sequence.
685 * No filespec parameters means that groffer waits for standard input.
687 The minus option - always stands for standard input; it can occur
688 several times. If you want to look up a man page called - use the
689 argument man:-.
690 * Next a filespec is tested whether it is the path name of an existing
692 file. Otherwise it is assumed to be a searching pattern for a
693 man page.
694 * man:name(section_extension), man:name.section_extension,
696 name(section_extension), or name.section_extension search the
697 man page name in man section and possibly extension of
698 section_extension.
699 * Now man:name searches for a man page in the lowest man section that
701 has a document called name.
702 * section_extension name is a pattern of 2 arguments that originates
704 from a strange argument parsing of the man program. Again, this
705 searches the man page name with section_extension, a combination of a
706 section character optionally followed by an extension.
707 * We are left with the argument name which is not an existing file. So
709 this searches for the man page called name in the lowest man section
710 that has a document for this name.
711 Several file name arguments can be supplied. They are mixed by groff
713 into a single document. Note that the set of option arguments must fit
714 to all of these file arguments. So they should have at least the same
715 style of the groff language.
716
718 By default, the groffer program collects all input into a single file,
719 formats it with the groff program for a certain device, and then choos‐
720 es a suitable viewer program. The device and viewer process in groffer
721 is called a mode. The mode and viewer of a running groffer program is
722 selected automatically, but the user can also choose it with options.
723 The modes are selected by option the arguments of --mode=anymode. Ad‐
724 ditionally, each of this argument can be specified as an option of its
725 own, such as anymode. Most of these modes have a viewer program, which
726 can be chosen by the option --viewer.
727 Several different modes are offered: graphical modes for the X Window
729 System, text modes, and some direct groff modes for debugging and de‐
730 velopment.
731 By default, groffer first tries whether x mode is possible, then
733 ps mode, and finally tty mode. This mode testing sequence for
734 auto mode can be changed by specifying a comma separated list of modes
735 with the option --default-modes.
736 The searching for man pages and the decompression of the input are ac‐
738 tive in every mode.
739 Graphical Display Modes
741 The graphical display modes work mostly in the X Window System environ‐
742 ment (or similar implementations within other windowing environments).
743 The environment variable DISPLAY and the option --display are used for
744 specifying the X Window System display to be used. If this environment
745 variable is empty, groffer assumes that the X Window System is not run‐
746 ning and changes to a text mode. You can change this automatic behav‐
747 ior by the option --default-modes.
748 Known viewers for the graphical display modes and their standard X Win‐
750 dow System viewer programs are
751 * in a PDF viewer (pdf mode)
753 * in a web browser (html, (xhtml, or www mode)
755 * in a PostScript viewer (ps mode)
757 * X Window System roff viewers such as gxditview(1) or xditview(1) (in
759 x mode)
760 * in a DVI viewer program (dvi mode)
762 The pdf mode has a major advantage — it is the only graphical display
764 mode that allows searching for text within the viewer; this can be a
765 really important feature. Unfortunately, it takes some time to trans‐
766 form the input into the PDF format, so it was not chosen as the major
767 mode.
768 These graphical viewers can be customized by options of the X Window
770 System Toolkit Intrinsics. But the groffer options use a leading dou‐
771 ble minus instead of the single minus used by the X Window System Tool‐
772 kit Intrinsics.
773 Text modes
775 There are two modes for text output, mode text for plain output without
776 a pager and mode tty for a text output on a text terminal using some
777 pager program.
778 If the variable DISPLAY is not set or empty, groffer assumes that it
780 should use tty mode.
781 In the actual implementation, the groff output device latin1 is chosen
783 for text modes. This can be changed by specifying option -T or
784 --device.
785 The pager to be used can be specified by one of the options --pager and
787 --viewer, or by the environment variable PAGER. If all of this is not
788 used the less(1) program with the option -r for correctly displaying
789 control sequences is used as the default pager.
790 Special Modes for Debugging and Development
792 These modes use the groffer file determination and decompression. This
793 is combined into a single input file that is fed directly into groff
794 with different strategy without the groffer viewing facilities. These
795 modes are regarded as advanced, they are useful for debugging and de‐
796 velopment purposes.
797 The source mode with option --source just displays the decompressed in‐
799 put.
800 Option --to-stdout does not display in a graphical mode. It just gen‐
802 erates the file for the chosen mode and then prints its content to
803 standard output.
804 The groff mode passes the input to groff using only some suitable op‐
806 tions provided to groffer. This enables the user to save the generated
807 output into a file or pipe it into another program.
808 In groff mode, the option -Z disables post-processing, thus producing
810 the groff intermediate output. In this mode, the input is formatted,
811 but not postprocessed; see groff_out(5) for details.
812 All groff short options are supported by groffer.
814
816 The default behavior of groffer is to first test whether a file parame‐
817 ter represents a local file; if it is not an existing file name, it is
818 assumed to represent the name of a man page. The following options can
819 be used to determine whether the arguments should be handled as file
820 name or man page arguments.
821 --man forces to interpret all file parameters as filespecs for search‐
823 ing man pages.
824 --no-man
826 --local-file
827 disable the man searching; so only local files are displayed.
828 If neither a local file nor a man page was retrieved for some file pa‐
830 rameter a warning is issued on standard error, but processing is con‐
831 tinued.
832 Search Algorithm
834 Let us now assume that a man page should be searched. The groffer pro‐
835 gram provides a search facility for man pages. All long options, all
836 environment variables, and most of the functionality of the GNU man(1)
837 program were implemented. The search algorithm shall determine which
838 file is displayed for a given man page. The process can be modified by
839 options and environment variables.
840 The only man action that is omitted in groffer are the preformatted
842 man pages, also called cat pages. With the excellent performance of
843 the actual computers, the preformatted man pages aren't necessary any
844 longer. Additionally, groffer is a roff program; it wants to read roff
845 source files and format them itself.
846 The algorithm for retrieving the file for a man page needs first a set
848 of directories. This set starts with the so-called man path that is
849 modified later on by adding names of operating system and language.
850 This arising set is used for adding the section directories which con‐
851 tain the man page files.
852 The man path is a list of directories that are separated by colon. It
854 is generated by the following methods.
855 * The environment variable MANPATH can be set.
857 * It can be read from the arguments of the environment variable MANOPT.
859 * The man path can be manually specified by using the option --manpath.
861 An empty argument disables the man page searching.
862 * When no man path was set the manpath(1) program is tried to determine
864 one.
865 * If this does not work a reasonable default path from $PATH is deter‐
867 mined.
868 We now have a starting set of directories. The first way to change
870 this set is by adding names of operating systems. This assumes that
871 man pages for several operating systems are installed. This is not al‐
872 ways true. The names of such operating systems can be provided by 3
873 methods.
874 * The environment variable SYSTEM has the lowest precedence.
876 * This can be overridden by an option in MANOPT.
878 * This again is overridden by the command-line option --systems.
880 Several names of operating systems can be given by appending their
882 names, separated by a comma.
883 The man path is changed by appending each system name as subdirectory
885 at the end of each directory of the set. No directory of the man path
886 set is kept. But if no system name is specified the man path is left
887 unchanged.
888 After this, the actual set of directories can be changed by language
890 information. This assumes that there exist man pages in different lan‐
891 guages. The wanted language can be chosen by several methods.
892 * Environment variable LANG.
894 * This is overridden by LC_MESSAGES.
896 * This is overridden by LC_ALL.
898 * This can be overridden by providing an option in MANOPT.
900 * All these environment variables are overridden by the command-line
902 option --locale.
903 The default language can be specified by specifying one of the pseudo-
905 language parameters C or POSIX. This is like deleting a formerly given
906 language information. The man pages in the default language are usual‐
907 ly in English.
908 Of course, the language name is determined by man. In GNU man, it is
910 specified in the POSIX 1003.1 based format:
911 <language>[_<territory>[.<character-set>[,<version>]]],
913 but the two-letter code in <language> is sufficient for most purposes.
915 If for a complicated language formulation no man pages are found
916 groffer searches the country part consisting of these first two charac‐
917 ters as well.
918 The actual directory set is copied thrice. The language name is ap‐
920 pended as subdirectory to each directory in the first copy of the actu‐
921 al directory set (this is only done when a language information is giv‐
922 en). Then the 2-letter abbreviation of the language name is appended
923 as subdirectories to the second copy of the directory set (this is only
924 done when the given language name has more than 2 letters). The third
925 copy of the directory set is kept unchanged (if no language information
926 is given this is the kept directory set). These maximally 3 copies are
927 appended to get the new directory set.
928 We now have a complete set of directories to work with. In each of
930 these directories, the man files are separated in sections. The name
931 of a section is represented by a single character, a digit between 1
932 and 9, or the character o or n, in this order.
933 For each available section, a subdirectory man<section> exists contain‐
935 ing all man files for this section, where <section> is a single charac‐
936 ter as described before. Each man file in a section directory has the
937 form man<section>/<name>.<section>[<extension>][.<compression>], where
938 <extension> and <compression> are optional. <name> is the name of the
939 man page that is also specified as filespec argument on the command
940 line.
941 The extension is an addition to the section. This postfix acts like a
943 subsection. An extension occurs only in the file name, not in name of
944 the section subdirectory. It can be specified on the command line.
945 On the other hand, the compression is just an information on how the
947 file is compressed. This is not important for the user, such that it
948 cannot be specified on the command line.
949 There are 4 methods to specify a section on the command line:
951 * Environment variable MANSECT
953 * Command line option --sections
955 * Appendix to the name argument in the form <name>.<section>
957 * Preargument before the name argument in the form <section> <name>
959 It is also possible to specify several sections by appending the single
961 characters separated by colons. One can imagine that this means to re‐
962 strict the man page search to only some sections. The multiple sec‐
963 tions are only possible for MANSECT and --sections.
964 If no section is specified all sections are searched one after the oth‐
966 er in the given order, starting with section 1, until a suitable file
967 is found.
968 There are 4 methods to specify an extension on the command line. But
970 it is not necessary to provide the whole extension name, some abbrevia‐
971 tion is good enough in most cases.
972 * Environment variable EXTENSION
974 * Command line option --extension
976 * Appendix to the <name>.<section> argument in the form <name>.<sec‐
978 tion><extension>
979 * Preargument before the name argument in the form <section><extension>
981 <name>
982 For further details on man page searching, see man(1).
984 Examples of man files
986 /usr/share/man/man1/groff.1
987 This is an uncompressed file for the man page groff in sec‐
988 tion 1. It can be called by
989 sh# groffer groff
990 No section is specified here, so all sections should be
991 searched, but as section 1 is searched first this file will be
992 found first. The file name is composed of the following compo‐
993 nents. /usr/share/man/ must be part of the man path; the subdi‐
994 rectory man1/ and the part .1 stand for the section; groff is
995 the name of the man page.
996 /usr/local/share/man/man7/groff.7.gz
998 The file name is composed of the following components. /usr/lo‐
999 cal/share/man must be part of the man path; the subdirectory
1000 man7/ and the part .7 stand for the section; groff is the name
1001 of the man page; the final part .gz stands for a compression
1002 with gzip(1). As the section is not the first one it must be
1003 specified as well. This can be done by one of the following
1004 commands.
1005 sh# groffer groff.7
1006 sh# groffer 7 groff
1007 sh# groffer --sections=7 groff
1008 /usr/local/man/man1/ctags.1emacs21.bz2
1010 Here /usr/local/man must be in man path; the subdirectory man1/
1011 and the file name part .1 stand for section 1; the name of the
1012 man page is ctags; the section has an extension emacs21; and the
1013 file is compressed as .bz2 with bzip2(1). The file can be
1014 viewed with one of the following commands
1015 sh# groffer ctags.1e
1016 sh# groffer 1e ctags
1017 sh# groffer --extension=e --sections=1 ctags
1018 where e works as an abbreviation for the extension emacs21.
1019 /usr/man/linux/de/man7/man.7.Z
1021 The directory /usr/man is now part of the man path; then there
1022 is a subdirectory for an operating system name linux/; next
1023 comes a subdirectory de/ for the German language; the section
1024 names man7 and .7 are known so far; man is the name of the
1025 man page; and .Z signifies the compression that can be handled
1026 by gzip(1). We want now show how to provide several values for
1027 some options. That is possible for sections and operating sys‐
1028 tem names. So we use as sections 5 and 7 and as system names
1029 linux and aix. The command is then
1030 sh# groffer --locale=de --sections=5:7 --systems=linux,aix man
1032 sh# LANG=de MANSECT=5:7 SYSTEM=linux,aix groffer man
1033
1035 The program has a decompression facility. If standard input or a file
1036 that was retrieved from the command line parameters is compressed with
1037 a format that is supported by either gzip(1) or bzip2(1) it is decom‐
1038 pressed on-the-fly. This includes the GNU .gz, .bz2, and the tradi‐
1039 tional .Z compression. The program displays the concatenation of all
1040 decompressed input in the sequence that was specified on the command
1041 line.
1042
1044 The groffer program supports many system variables, most of them by
1045 courtesy of other programs. All environment variables of groff(1) and
1046 GNU man(1) and some standard system variables are honored.
1047 Native groffer Variables
1049 GROFFER_OPT
1050 Store options for a run of groffer. The options specified in
1051 this variable are overridden by the options given on the command
1052 line. The content of this variable is run through the shell
1053 builtin “eval”, so arguments containing whitespace or special
1054 shell characters should be quoted. Do not forget to export this
1055 variable, otherwise it does not exist during the run of groffer.
1056 System Variables
1058 The following variables have a special meaning for groffer.
1059 DISPLAY
1061 If set, this variable indicates that the X Window System is run‐
1062 ning. Testing this variable decides on whether graphical or
1063 text output is generated. This variable should not be changed
1064 by the user carelessly, but it can be used to start the graphi‐
1065 cal groffer on a remote X Window System terminal. For example,
1066 depending on your system, groffer can be started on the second
1067 monitor by the command
1068 sh# DISPLAY=:0.1 groffer what.ever &
1070 LC_ALL
1072 LC_MESSAGES
1073 LANG If one of these variables is set (in the above sequence), its
1074 content is interpreted as the locale, the language to be used,
1075 especially when retrieving man pages. A locale name is typi‐
1076 cally of the form language[_territory[.codeset[@modifier]]],
1077 where language is an ISO 639 language code, territory is an ISO
1078 3166 country code, and codeset is a character set or encoding
1079 identifier like ISO-8859-1 or UTF-8; see setlocale(3). The lo‐
1080 cale values C and POSIX stand for the default, i.e. the man page
1081 directories without a language prefix. This is the same behav‐
1082 ior as when all 3 variables are unset.
1083 PAGER This variable can be used to set the pager for the tty output.
1085 For example, to disable the use of a pager completely set this
1086 variable to the cat(1) program
1087 sh# PAGER=cat groffer anything
1089 PATH All programs within the groffer script are called without a
1092 fixed path. Thus this environment variable determines the set
1093 of programs used within the run of groffer.
1094 Groff Variables
1096 The groffer program internally calls groff, so all environment vari‐
1097 ables documented in groff(1) are internally used within groffer as
1098 well. The following variable has a direct meaning for the groffer pro‐
1099 gram.
1100 GROFF_TMPDIR
1102 If the value of this variable is an existing, writable direc‐
1103 tory, groffer uses it for storing its temporary files, just as
1104 groff does. See the groff(1) man page for more details on the
1105 location of temporary files.
1106 Man Variables
1108 Parts of the functionality of the man program were implemented in
1109 groffer; support for all environment variables documented in man(1) was
1110 added to groffer, but the meaning was slightly modified due to the dif‐
1111 ferent approach in groffer; but the user interface is the same. The
1112 man environment variables can be overwritten by options provided with
1113 MANOPT, which in turn is overwritten by the command line.
1114 EXTENSION
1116 Restrict the search for man pages to files having this exten‐
1117 sion. This is overridden by option --extension; see there for
1118 details.
1119 MANOPT This variable contains options as a preset for man(1). As not
1121 all of these are relevant for groffer only the essential parts
1122 of its value are extracted. The options specified in this vari‐
1123 able overwrite the values of the other environment variables
1124 that are specific to man. All options specified in this vari‐
1125 able are overridden by the options given on the command line.
1126 MANPATH
1128 If set, this variable contains the directories in which the
1129 man page trees are stored. This is overridden by option
1130 --manpath.
1131 MANSECT
1133 If this is a colon separated list of section names, the search
1134 for man pages is restricted to those manual sections in that or‐
1135 der. This is overridden by option --sections.
1136 SYSTEM If this is set to a comma separated list of names these are in‐
1138 terpreted as man page trees for different operating systems.
1139 This variable can be overwritten by option --systems; see there
1140 for details.
1141 The environment variable MANROFFSEQ is ignored by groffer because the
1143 necessary preprocessors are determined automatically.
1144
1146 The groffer program can be preconfigured by two configuration files.
1147 /etc/groff/groffer.conf
1149 System-wide configuration file for groffer.
1150 $HOME/.groff/groffer.conf
1152 User-specific configuration file for groffer, where $HOME de‐
1153 notes the user's home directory. This file is called after the
1154 system-wide configuration file to enable overriding by the user.
1155 Both files are handled for the configuration, but the configuration
1157 file in /etc comes first; it is overwritten by the configuration file
1158 in the home directory; both configuration files are overwritten by the
1159 environment variable GROFFER_OPT; everything is overwritten by the com‐
1160 mand line arguments.
1161 The configuration files contain options that should be called as de‐
1163 fault for every groffer run. These options are written in lines such
1164 that each contains either a long option, a short option, or a short op‐
1165 tion cluster; each with or without an argument. So each line with con‐
1166 figuration information starts with a minus character “-”; a line with a
1167 long option starts with two minus characters “--”, a line with a short
1168 option or short option cluster starts with a single minus “-”.
1169 The option names in the configuration files may not be abbreviated,
1171 they must be exact.
1172 The argument for a long option can be separated from the option name
1174 either by an equal sign “=” or by whitespace, i.e. one or several space
1175 or tab characters. An argument for a short option or short option
1176 cluster can be directly appended to the option name or separated by
1177 whitespace. The end of an argument is the end of the line. It is not
1178 allowed to use a shell environment variable in an option name or argu‐
1179 ment.
1180 It is not necessary to use quotes in an option or argument, except for
1182 empty arguments. An empty argument can be provided by appending a pair
1183 of quotes to the separating equal sign or whitespace; with a short op‐
1184 tion, the separator can be omitted as well. For a long option with a
1185 separating equal sign “=”, the pair of quotes can be omitted, thus end‐
1186 ing the line with the separating equal sign. All other quote charac‐
1187 ters are cancelled internally.
1188 In the configuration files, arbitrary whitespace is allowed at the be‐
1190 ginning of each line, it is just ignored. Each whitespace within a
1191 line is replaced by a single space character “ ” internally.
1192 All lines of the configuration lines that do not start with a minus
1194 character are ignored, such that comments starting with “#” are possi‐
1195 ble. So there are no shell commands in the configuration files.
1196 As an example, consider the following configuration file that can be
1198 used either in /etc/groff/groffer.conf or ~/.groff/groffer.conf .
1199 # groffer configuration file
1201 #
1202 # groffer options that are used in each call of groffer
1203 --foreground=DarkBlue
1204 --resolution=100
1205 --viewer=gxditview -geometry 900x1200
1206 The lines starting with # are just ignored, so they act as command
1208 lines. This configuration sets four groffer options (the lines start‐
1209 ing with “-”). This has the following effects:
1210 * Use a text color of DarkBlue in all viewers that support this, such
1212 as gxditview.
1213 * Use a resolution of 100dpi in all viewers that support this, such as
1215 gxditview. By this, the default device in x mode is set to X100.
1216 * Force gxditview(1) as the x-mode viewer using the geometry option for
1218 setting the width to 900px and the height to 1200px. This geometry
1219 is suitable for a resolution of 100dpi.
1220 * Use xpdf(1) as the pdf-mode viewer with the argument -Z 150.
1222
1224 The usage of groffer is very easy. Usually, it is just called with a
1225 file name or man page. The following examples, however, show that
1226 groffer has much more fancy capabilities.
1227 sh# groffer /usr/local/share/doc/groff/meintro.ms.gz
1229 Decompress, format and display the compressed file meintro.ms.gz in the
1231 directory /usr/local/share/doc/groff, using the standard viewer
1232 gxditview as graphical viewer when in the X Window System, or the
1233 less(1) pager program otherwise.
1234 sh# groffer groff
1236 If the file ./groff exists use it as input. Otherwise interpret the
1238 argument as a search for the man page named groff in the smallest pos‐
1239 sible man section, being section 1 in this case.
1240 sh# groffer man:groff
1242 search for the man page of groff even when the file ./groff exists.
1244 sh# groffer groff.7
1246 sh# groffer 7 groff
1247 search the man page of groff in man section 7. This section search
1249 works only for a digit or a single character from a small set.
1250 sh# groffer fb.modes
1252 If the file ./fb.modes does not exist interpret this as a search for
1254 the man page of fb.modes. As the extension modes is not a single char‐
1255 acter in classical section style the argument is not split to a search
1256 for fb.
1257 sh# groffer groff ’troff(1)’ man:roff
1259 The arguments that are not existing files are looked-up as the follow‐
1261 ing man pages: groff (automatic search, should be found in man sec‐
1262 tion 1), troff (in section 1), and roff (in the section with the lowest
1263 number, being 7 in this case). The quotes around ’troff(1)’ are neces‐
1264 sary because the parentheses are special shell characters; escaping
1265 them with a backslash character \( and \) would be possible, too. The
1266 formatted files are concatenated and displayed in one piece.
1267 sh# LANG=de groffer --man --viewer=galeon ls
1269 Retrieve the German man page (language de) for the ls program, decom‐
1271 press it, format it to html or xhtml format (www mode) and view the re‐
1272 sult in the web browser galeon. The option --man guarantees that the
1273 man page is retrieved, even when a local file ls exists in the actual
1274 directory.
1275 sh# groffer --source 'man:roff(7)'
1277 Get the man page called roff in man section 7, decompress it, and print
1279 its unformatted content, its source code.
1280 sh# groffer --de-p --in --ap
1282 This is a set of abbreviated arguments, it is determined as
1284 sh# groffer --debug-params --intermediate-output --apropos
1286 sh# cat file.gz | groffer -Z -mfoo
1289 The file file.gz is sent to standard input, this is decompressed, and
1291 then this is transported to the groff intermediate output mode without
1292 post-processing (groff option -Z), using macro package foo (groff op‐
1293 tion -m).
1294 sh# echo '\f(CBWOW!' |
1296 > groffer --x --bg red --fg yellow --geometry 200x100 -
1297 Display the word WOW! in a small window in constant-width bold font,
1299 using color yellow on red background.
1300
1302 The groffer program is written in Perl, the Perl version during writing
1303 was v5.8.8.
1304 groffer provides its own parser for command-line arguments that is com‐
1306 patible to both POSIX getopts(1) and GNU getopt(1). It can handle op‐
1307 tion arguments and file names containing white space and a large set of
1308 special characters. The following standard types of options are sup‐
1309 ported.
1310 * The option consisting of a single minus - refers to standard input.
1312 * A single minus followed by characters refers to a single character
1314 option or a combination thereof; for example, the groffer short op‐
1315 tion combination -Qmfoo is equivalent to -Q -m foo.
1316 * Long options are options with names longer than one character; they
1318 are always preceded by a double minus. An option argument can either
1319 go to the next command-line argument or be appended with an equal
1320 sign to the argument; for example, --long=arg is equivalent to
1321 --long arg.
1322 * An argument of -- ends option parsing; all further command-line argu‐
1324 ments are interpreted as filespec parameters, i.e. file names or con‐
1325 structs for searching man pages).
1326 * All command-line arguments that are neither options nor option argu‐
1328 ments are interpreted as filespec parameters and stored until option
1329 parsing has finished. For example, the command line
1330 sh# groffer file1 -a -o arg file2
1332 is equivalent to
1334 sh# groffer -a -o arg -- file1 file2
1336 The free mixing of options and filespec parameters follows the GNU
1339 principle. That does not fulfill the strange option behavior of POSIX
1340 that ends option processing as soon as the first non-option argument
1341 has been reached. The end of option processing can be forced by the
1342 option “--” anyway.
1343
1345 groffer was written by Bernd Warken ⟨groff-bernd.warken-72@web.de⟩.
1346
1348 groff(1), troff(1)
1349 Details on the options and environment variables available in
1350 groff; all of them can be used with groffer.
1351 grog(1)
1353 This program tries to guess the necessary groff command-line op‐
1354 tions from the input and the groffer options.
1355 groff(7)
1357 Documentation of the groff language.
1358 groff_char(7)
1360 Documentation on the groff characters, special characters, and
1361 glyphs..
1362 groff_tmac(5)
1364 Documentation on the groff macro files.
1365 groff_out(5)
1367 Documentation on the groff intermediate output before the run of
1368 a postprocessor. (ditroff output). This can be run by the
1369 groff or groffer option -Z.
1370 man(1) The standard program to display man pages. The information
1372 there is only useful if it is the man page for GNU man. Then it
1373 documents the options and environment variables that are sup‐
1374 ported by groffer.
1375 gxditview(1)
1377 xditview(1x)
1378 Viewers for groffer's x mode.
1379 kpdf(1)
1381 kghostview(1)
1382 evince(1)
1383 ggv(1)
1384 gv(1)
1385 ghostview(1)
1386 gs(1) Viewers for groffer's ps mode.
1387 kpdf(1)
1389 acroread(1)
1390 evince(1)
1391 xpdf(1)
1392 gpdf(1)
1393 kghostview(1)
1394 ggv(1) Viewers for groffer's pdf mode.
1395 kdvi(1), xdvi(1), dvilx(1)
1397 Viewers for groffer's dvi mode.
1398 konqueror(1)
1400 epiphany(1)
1401 firefox(1)
1402 mozilla(1)
1403 netscape(1)
1404 lynx(1)
1405 Web-browsers for groffer's html, xhtml, or www mode.
1406 less(1)
1408 more(1)
1409 Standard pager program for the tty mode.
1410 gzip(1)
1412 bzip2(1)
1413 xz(1) The decompression programs supported by groffer.
1414groff 1.22.4 19 January 2023 GROFFER(1)