{ "content": [ { "type": "text", "text": "# groffer (man)\n\n## NAME\n\ngroffer - display groff files and man pages on X and tty\n\n## SYNOPSIS\n\ngroffer [mode-option ...] [groff-option ...] [man-option ...] [X-option ...] [--] [filespec\n...]\n\n## DESCRIPTION\n\nThe groffer program is the easiest way to use groff(1). It can display arbitrary documents\nwritten in the groff language, see groff(7), or other roff languages, see roff(7), that are\ncompatible to the original troff language. It finds and runs all necessary groff preproces‐\nsors, such as chem.\n\n## Sections\n\n- **NAME**\n- **SYNOPSIS** (4 subsections)\n- **DESCRIPTION**\n- **OPTION OVERVIEW**\n- **OPTION DETAILS** (36 subsections)\n- **OUTPUT MODES** (4 subsections)\n- **MAN PAGE SEARCHING** (8 subsections)\n- **DECOMPRESSION**\n- **ENVIRONMENT** (4 subsections)\n- **CONFIGURATION FILES** (2 subsections)\n- **EXAMPLES**\n- **COMPATIBILITY**\n- **AUTHORS**\n- **SEE ALSO**\n\nUse structuredContent.sections for detailed options, examples, and full documentation.\n" } ], "structuredContent": { "command": "groffer", "section": "", "mode": "man", "summary": "groffer - display groff files and man pages on X and tty", "synopsis": "groffer [mode-option ...] [groff-option ...] [man-option ...] [X-option ...] [--] [filespec\n...]", "tldr_summary": null, "tldr_examples": [], "tldr_source": null, "flags": [ { "flag": "-h", "long": "--help", "arg": null, "description": "Print help information with a short explanation of options to standard output." }, { "flag": "-v", "long": "--version", "arg": null, "description": "Print version information to standard output." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--default", "arg": null, "description": "Reset all configuration from previously processed command-line options to the default values. This is useful to wipe out all former options of the configuration, in GROFFEROPT, and restart option processing using only the rest of the command line. --default-modes mode1,mode2,... Set the sequence of modes for auto mode to the comma separated list given in the argu‐ ment. See --mode for details on modes. Display in the default manner; actually, this means to try the modes x, ps, and tty in this sequence. --dvi Equivalent to --mode=dvi. Known DVI viewers for the X Window System include xdvi(1) and dvilx(1)." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--groff", "arg": null, "description": "Equivalent to --mode=groff. --html Equivalent to --mode=html. --mode value Set the display mode. The following mode values are recognized: auto Select the automatic determination of the display mode. The sequence of modes that are tried can be set with the --default-modes option. Useful for restor‐ ing the default mode when a different mode was specified before. dvi Display formatted input in a DVI viewer program. By default, the formatted in‐ put is displayed with the xdvi(1) program. groff After the file determination, switch groffer to process the input like groff(1) would do. This disables the groffer viewing features. html Translate the input into HTML format and display the result in a web browser program. By default, the existence of a sequence of standard web browsers is tested, starting with konqueror(1) and mozilla(1). The text HTML viewer is lynx(1). By default, the existence of a sequence of standard web browsers is tested, starting with konqueror(1) and mozilla(1). The text HTML viewer is lynx(1). pdf Transform roff input files into a PDF file by using the groff (1) device -Tpdf. This is the default PDF generator. The generated PDF file is displayed with suitable viewer programs, such as okular(1). pdf2 This is the traditional pdf mode. Sometimes this mode produces more correct output than the default PDF mode. By default, the input is formatted by groff using the PostScript device, then it is transformed into the PDF file format using gs(1), or ps2pdf(1). If that's not possible, the PostScript mode (ps) is used instead. Finally it is displayed using different viewer programs. ps Display formatted input in a PostScript viewer program. By default, the for‐ matted input is displayed in one of many viewer programs. text Format in a groff text mode and write the result to standard output without a pager or viewer program. The text device, latin1 by default, can be chosen with option -T. tty Format in a groff text mode and write the result to standard output using a text pager program, even when in the X Window System. www Equivalent to --mode=html. x Display the formatted input in a native roff viewer. By default, the formatted input is displayed with the gxditview(1) program being distributed together with groff. But the legacy X Window System application xditview(1) can also be chosen with the option --viewer. The default resolution is 75dpi, but 100dpi are also possible. The default groff device for the resolution of 75dpi is X75-12, for 100dpi it is X100. The corresponding groff intermediate output for the actual device is generated and the result is displayed. For a resolution of 100dpi, the default width of the geometry of the display program is chosen to 850dpi. X Equivalent to --mode=x. xhtml Translate the input into XHTML format, which is an XML version of HTML. Then display the result in a web browser program, mostly the known HTML viewers. The following modes do not use the groffer viewing features. They are only interest‐ ing for advanced applications. groff Generate device output with plain groff without using the special viewing fea‐ tures of groffer. If no device was specified by option -T the groff default ps is assumed. source Output the roff source code of the input files without further processing. --pdf Equivalent to --mode=pdf. --pdf2 Equivalent to --mode=pdf2. --ps Equivalent to --mode=ps. Common PostScript viewers include okular(1), evince(1), gv(1), ghostview(1), and gs(1), In each case, arguments can be provided additionally." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--source", "arg": null, "description": "Equivalent to --mode=source. --text Equivalent to --mode=text." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--to-stdout", "arg": null, "description": "The file for the chosen mode is generated and its content is printed to standard out‐ put. It will not be displayed in graphical mode. --tty Equivalent to --mode=tty. The standard pager is less(1). This option is equivalent to man option --pager=prog. The option argument can be a file name or a program to be searched in $PATH; arguments can be provided additionally. --viewer prog Choose a viewer program for actual device or mode. This can be a file name or a pro‐ gram to be searched in $PATH; arguments can be provided additionally. --www Equivalent to --mode=html. --X | --x Equivalent to --mode=x. Suitable viewer programs are gxditview(1) which is the de‐ fault and xditview(1). -- Signals the end of option processing; all remaining arguments are interpreted as filespec parameters. Besides these, groffer accepts all short options that are valid for the groff(1) program. All non-groffer options are sent unmodified via grog to groff. So postprocessors, macro packages, compatibility with classical troff, and much more can be manually specified." }, { "flag": "-Z", "long": "--ditroff", "arg": null, "description": "Switch into groff mode and format the input with the groff intermediate output without postprocessing; see groffout(5). This is equivalent to option --ditroff of man, which can be used as well. All other groff options are supported by groffer, but they are just transparently transferred to groff without any intervention. The options that are not explicitly handled by groffer are transparently passed to groff. Therefore these transparent options are not documented here, but in groff(1). Due to the automatism in groffer, none of these groff options should be needed, except for advanced usage." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--apropos", "arg": null, "description": "Start the apropos(1) command or facility of man(1) for searching the filespec argu‐ ments within all man page descriptions. Each filespec argument is taken for search as it is; section specific parts are not handled, such that 7 groff searches for the two arguments 7 and groff, with a large result; for the filespec groff.7 nothing will be found. The language locale is handled only when the called programs do support this; the GNU apropos and man -k do not. The display differs from the apropos program by the following concepts: * Construct a groff frame similar to a man page to the output of apropos, * each filespec argument is searched on its own. * The restriction by --sections is handled as well, * wildcard characters are allowed and handled without a further option." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--apropos-data", "arg": null, "description": "Show only the apropos descriptions for data documents, these are the man(7) sec‐ tions 4, 5, and 7. Direct section declarations are ignored, wildcards are accepted." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--apropos-devel", "arg": null, "description": "Show only the apropos descriptions for development documents, these are the man(7) sections 2, 3, and 9. Direct section declarations are ignored, wildcards are ac‐ cepted." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--apropos-progs", "arg": null, "description": "Show only the apropos descriptions for documents on programs, these are the man(7) sections 1, 6, and 8. Direct section declarations are ignored, wildcards are ac‐ cepted." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--whatis", "arg": null, "description": "For each filespec argument search all man pages and display their description — or say that it is not a man page. This is written from anew, so it differs from man's whatis output by the following concepts * each retrieved file name is added, * local files are handled as well, * the language and system locale is supported, * the display is framed by a groff output format similar to a man page, * wildcard characters are allowed without a further option. The following options were added to groffer for choosing whether the file name arguments are interpreted as names for local files or as a search pattern for man pages. The default is looking up for local files. --man Check the non-option command-line arguments (filespecs) first on being man pages, then whether they represent an existing file. By default, a filespec is first tested whether it is an existing file. --no-man | --local-file Do not check for man pages. --local-file is the corresponding man option." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--no-special", "arg": null, "description": "Disable former calls of --all, --apropos*, and --whatis." }, { "flag": "-7", "long": "--ascii", "arg": null, "description": "In text modes, display ASCII translation of special characters for critical environ‐ ment. This is equivalent to groff -mttychar; see grofftmac(5)." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--ditroff", "arg": null, "description": "Produce groff intermediate output. This is equivalent to groffer -Z. --extension suffix Restrict man page search to file names that have suffix appended to their section ele‐ ment. For example, in the file name /usr/share/man/man3/terminfo.3ncurses.gz the man page extension is ncurses. --locale language Set the language for man pages. This has the same effect, but overwrites $LANG." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--location", "arg": null, "description": "Print the location of the retrieved files to standard error." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--no-location", "arg": null, "description": "Do not display the location of retrieved files; this resets a former call to --loca‐‐ tion. This was added by groffer. --manpath 'dir1:dir2:...' Use the specified search path for retrieving man pages instead of the program de‐ faults. If the argument is set to the empty string \"\" the search for man page is dis‐ abled." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--pager", "arg": null, "description": "Set the pager program in tty mode; default is less. This can be set with --viewer. --sections sec1:sec2:... Restrict searching for man pages to the given sections, a colon-separated list. --systems sys1,sys2,... Search for man pages for the given operating systems; the argument systems is a comma- separated list." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--where", "arg": null, "description": "Equivalent to --location." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--debug", "arg": null, "description": "Enable all debugging options --debug-type. The temporary files are kept and not deleted, the grog output is printed, the name of the temporary directory is printed, the displayed file names are printed, and the parameters are printed." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--debug-filenames", "arg": null, "description": "Print the names of the files and man pages that are displayed by groffer." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--debug-grog", "arg": null, "description": "Print the output of all grog commands." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--debug-keep", "arg": null, "description": "Enable two debugging informations. Print the name of the temporary directory and keep the temporary files, do not delete them during the run of groffer." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--debug-params", "arg": null, "description": "Print the parameters, as obtained from the configuration files, from GROFFEROPT, and the command-line arguments." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--debug-tmpdir", "arg": null, "description": "Print the name of the temporary directory." }, { "flag": "", "long": "--do-nothing", "arg": null, "description": "This is like --version, but without the output; no viewer is started. This makes only sense in development. --print=text Just print the argument to standard error. This is good for parameter check." }, { "flag": "-V", "long": null, "arg": null, "description": "input, a lot of groffer specific information is printed to standard output: * the output file name in the temporary directory, * the display mode of the actual groffer run, * the display program for viewing the output with its arguments, * the active parameters from the config files, the arguments in GROFFEROPT, and the arguments of the command line, * the pipeline that would be run by the groff program, but without executing it. Other useful debugging options are the groff option -Z and --mode=groff." }, { "flag": "-r", "long": null, "arg": null, "description": "" }, { "flag": "", "long": "--no-man", "arg": null, "description": "" }, { "flag": "", "long": "--local-file", "arg": null, "description": "disable the man searching; so only local files are displayed. If neither a local file nor a man page was retrieved for some file parameter a warning is is‐ sued on standard error, but processing is continued." } ], "examples": [ "The usage of groffer is very easy. Usually, it is just called with a file name or man page.", "The following examples, however, show that groffer has much more fancy capabilities.", "sh# groffer /usr/local/share/doc/groff/meintro.ms.gz", "Decompress, format and display the compressed file meintro.ms.gz in the directory /usr/lo‐‐", "cal/share/doc/groff, using the standard viewer gxditview as graphical viewer when in the X", "Window System, or the less(1) pager program otherwise.", "sh# groffer groff", "If the file ./groff exists use it as input. Otherwise interpret the argument as a search for", "the man page named groff in the smallest possible man section, being section 1 in this case.", "sh# groffer man:groff", "search for the man page of groff even when the file ./groff exists.", "sh# groffer groff.7", "sh# groffer 7 groff", "search the man page of groff in man section 7. This section search works only for a digit or", "a single character from a small set.", "sh# groffer fb.modes", "If the file ./fb.modes does not exist interpret this as a search for the man page of", "fb.modes. As the extension modes is not a single character in classical section style the", "argument is not split to a search for fb.", "sh# groffer groff ’troff(1)’ man:roff", "The arguments that are not existing files are looked-up as the following man pages: groff", "(automatic search, should be found in man section 1), troff (in section 1), and roff (in the", "section with the lowest number, being 7 in this case). The quotes around ’troff(1)’ are nec‐", "essary because the parentheses are special shell characters; escaping them with a backslash", "character \\( and \\) would be possible, too. The formatted files are concatenated and dis‐", "played in one piece.", "sh# LANG=de groffer --man --viewer=galeon ls", "Retrieve the German man page (language de) for the ls program, decompress it, format it to", "html or xhtml format (www mode) and view the result in the web browser galeon. The option", "--man guarantees that the man page is retrieved, even when a local file ls exists in the ac‐", "tual directory.", "sh# groffer --source 'man:roff(7)'", "Get the man page called roff in man section 7, decompress it, and print its unformatted con‐", "tent, its source code.", "sh# groffer --de-p --in --ap", "This is a set of abbreviated arguments, it is determined as", "sh# groffer --debug-params --intermediate-output --apropos", "sh# cat file.gz | groffer -Z -mfoo", "The file file.gz is sent to standard input, this is decompressed, and then this is trans‐", "ported to the groff intermediate output mode without post-processing (groff option -Z), using", "macro package foo (groff option -m).", "sh# echo '\\f(CBWOW!' |", "> groffer --x --bg red --fg yellow --geometry 200x100 -", "Display the word WOW! in a small window in constant-width bold font, using color yellow on", "red background." ], "see_also": [ { "name": "groff", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/groff/1/json" }, { "name": "troff", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/troff/1/json" }, { "name": "grog", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/grog/1/json" }, { "name": "groff", "section": "7", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/groff/7/json" }, { "name": "groffchar", "section": "7", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/groffchar/7/json" }, { "name": "grofftmac", "section": "5", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/grofftmac/5/json" }, { "name": "groffout", "section": "5", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/groffout/5/json" }, { "name": "man", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/man/1/json" }, { "name": "gxditview", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/gxditview/1/json" }, { "name": "xditview", "section": "1x", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/xditview/1x/json" }, { "name": "kpdf", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/kpdf/1/json" }, { "name": "kghostview", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/kghostview/1/json" }, { "name": "evince", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/evince/1/json" }, { "name": "ggv", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/ggv/1/json" }, { "name": "gv", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/gv/1/json" }, { "name": "ghostview", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/ghostview/1/json" }, { "name": "gs", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/gs/1/json" }, { "name": "kpdf", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/kpdf/1/json" }, { "name": "acroread", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/acroread/1/json" }, { "name": "evince", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/evince/1/json" }, { "name": "xpdf", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/xpdf/1/json" }, { "name": "gpdf", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/gpdf/1/json" }, { "name": "kghostview", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/kghostview/1/json" }, { "name": "ggv", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/ggv/1/json" }, { "name": "kdvi", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/kdvi/1/json" }, { "name": "xdvi", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/xdvi/1/json" }, { "name": "dvilx", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/dvilx/1/json" }, { "name": "konqueror", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/konqueror/1/json" }, { "name": "epiphany", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/epiphany/1/json" }, { "name": "firefox", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/firefox/1/json" }, { "name": "mozilla", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/mozilla/1/json" }, { "name": "netscape", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/netscape/1/json" }, { "name": "lynx", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/lynx/1/json" }, { "name": "less", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/less/1/json" }, { "name": "more", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/more/1/json" }, { "name": "gzip", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/gzip/1/json" }, { "name": "bzip2", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/bzip2/1/json" }, { "name": "xz", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/xz/1/json" } ], "section_outline": [ { "name": "NAME", "lines": 2, "subsections": [] }, { "name": "SYNOPSIS", "lines": 3, "subsections": [ { "name": "groffer -h", "lines": 1 }, { "name": "groffer --help", "lines": 1 }, { "name": "groffer -v", "lines": 1 }, { "name": "groffer --version", "lines": 1 } ] }, { "name": "DESCRIPTION", "lines": 31, "subsections": [] }, { "name": "OPTION OVERVIEW", "lines": 70, "subsections": [] }, { "name": "OPTION DETAILS", "lines": 16, "subsections": [ { "name": "groffer breaking Options", "lines": 4 }, { "name": "-h --help", "lines": 2, "flag": "-h", "long": "--help" }, { "name": "-v --version", "lines": 2, "flag": "-v", "long": "--version" }, { "name": "groffer Mode Options", "lines": 21 }, { "name": "--default", "lines": 12, "long": "--default" }, { "name": "--groff", "lines": 76, "long": "--groff" }, { "name": "--source", "lines": 4, "long": "--source" }, { "name": "--to-stdout", "lines": 24, "long": "--to-stdout" }, { "name": "Options related to groff", "lines": 32 }, { "name": "-Z --intermediate-output --ditroff", "lines": 10, "flag": "-Z", "long": "--ditroff" }, { "name": "Options for man pages", "lines": 1 }, { "name": "--apropos", "lines": 16, "long": "--apropos" }, { "name": "--apropos-data", "lines": 3, "long": "--apropos-data" }, { "name": "--apropos-devel", "lines": 4, "long": "--apropos-devel" }, { "name": "--apropos-progs", "lines": 4, "long": "--apropos-progs" }, { "name": "--whatis", "lines": 25, "long": "--whatis" }, { "name": "--no-special", "lines": 2, "long": "--no-special" }, { "name": "Long options taken over from GNU man", "lines": 12 }, { "name": "-7 --ascii", "lines": 3, "flag": "-7", "long": "--ascii" }, { "name": "--ditroff", "lines": 10, "long": "--ditroff" }, { "name": "--location", "lines": 2, "long": "--location" }, { "name": "--no-location", "lines": 8, "long": "--no-location" }, { "name": "--pager", "lines": 9, "long": "--pager" }, { "name": "--where", "lines": 2, "long": "--where" }, { "name": "X Window System Toolkit Intrinsics Options", "lines": 7 }, { "name": "-font", "lines": 57 }, { "name": "Options for Development", "lines": 1 }, { "name": "--debug", "lines": 4, "long": "--debug" }, { "name": "--debug-filenames", "lines": 2, "long": "--debug-filenames" }, { "name": "--debug-grog", "lines": 2, "long": "--debug-grog" }, { "name": "--debug-keep", "lines": 3, "long": "--debug-keep" }, { "name": "--debug-params", "lines": 3, "long": "--debug-params" }, { "name": "--debug-tmpdir", "lines": 2, "long": "--debug-tmpdir" }, { "name": "--do-nothing", "lines": 6, "long": "--do-nothing" }, { "name": "-V", "lines": 15, "flag": "-V" }, { "name": "Filespec Arguments", "lines": 57 } ] }, { "name": "OUTPUT MODES", "lines": 17, "subsections": [ { "name": "Graphical Display Modes", "lines": 29 }, { "name": "Text modes", "lines": 10 }, { "name": "-r", "lines": 1, "flag": "-r" }, { "name": "Special Modes for Debugging and Development", "lines": 20 } ] }, { "name": "MAN PAGE SEARCHING", "lines": 7, "subsections": [ { "name": "--no-man", "lines": 1, "long": "--no-man" }, { "name": "--local-file", "lines": 5, "long": "--local-file" }, { "name": "Search Algorithm", "lines": 130 }, { "name": "Examples of man files", "lines": 1 }, { "name": "/usr/share/man/man1/groff.1", "lines": 7 }, { "name": "/usr/local/share/man/man7/groff.7.gz", "lines": 9 }, { "name": "/usr/local/man/man1/ctags.1emacs21.bz2", "lines": 9 }, { "name": "/usr/man/linux/de/man7/man.7.Z", "lines": 11 } ] }, { "name": "DECOMPRESSION", "lines": 6, "subsections": [] }, { "name": "ENVIRONMENT", "lines": 4, "subsections": [ { "name": "Native groffer Variables", "lines": 7 }, { "name": "System Variables", "lines": 31 }, { "name": "Groff Variables", "lines": 9 }, { "name": "Man Variables", "lines": 32 } ] }, { "name": "CONFIGURATION FILES", "lines": 2, "subsections": [ { "name": "/etc/groff/groffer.conf", "lines": 2 }, { "name": "$HOME/.groff/groffer.conf", "lines": 61 } ] }, { "name": "EXAMPLES", "lines": 70, "subsections": [] }, { "name": "COMPATIBILITY", "lines": 37, "subsections": [] }, { "name": "AUTHORS", "lines": 2, "subsections": [] }, { "name": "SEE ALSO", "lines": 67, "subsections": [] } ], "sections": { "NAME": { "content": "groffer - display groff files and man pages on X and tty\n", "subsections": [] }, "SYNOPSIS": { "content": "groffer [mode-option ...] [groff-option ...] [man-option ...] [X-option ...] [--] [filespec\n...]\n", "subsections": [ { "name": "groffer -h", "content": "" }, { "name": "groffer --help", "content": "" }, { "name": "groffer -v", "content": "" }, { "name": "groffer --version", "content": "" } ] }, "DESCRIPTION": { "content": "The groffer program is the easiest way to use groff(1). It can display arbitrary documents\nwritten in the groff language, see groff(7), or other roff languages, see roff(7), that are\ncompatible to the original troff language. It finds and runs all necessary groff preproces‐\nsors, such as chem.\n\nThe groffer program also includes many of the features for finding and displaying the Unix\nmanual pages (man pages), such that it can be used as a replacement for a man(1) program.\nMoreover, compressed files that can be handled by gzip(1) or bzip2(1) are decompressed on-\nthe-fly.\n\nThe normal usage is quite simple by supplying a file name or name of a man page without fur‐\nther options. But the option handling has many possibilities for creating special behaviors.\nThis can be done either in configuration files, with the shell environment variable\nGROFFEROPT, or on the command line.\n\nThe output can be generated and viewed in several different ways available for groff. This\nincludes the X Window System-based groff program gxditview(1), each PostScript, PDF, or DVI\ndisplay program, a web browser by generating HTML or XHTML in www mode, or several text modes\nin text terminals.\n\nMost of the options that must be named when running groff directly are determined automati‐\ncally for groffer, due to the internal usage of the grog(1) program. But all parts can also\nbe controlled manually by arguments.\n\nSeveral file names can be specified on the command-line arguments. They are transformed into\na single document in the normal way of groff.\n\nOption handling is done in GNU style. Options and file names can be mixed freely. The op‐\ntion “--” closes the option handling, all following arguments are treated as file names.\nLong options can be abbreviated in several ways.\n", "subsections": [] }, "OPTION OVERVIEW": { "content": "breaking options\n\n[-h | --help] [-v | --version]\n\ngroffer mode options\n\n[--auto] [--default] [--default-modes mode1,mode2,...] [--dvi] [--groff] [--html]\n[--latin1] [--mode displaymode] [--pdf] [--pdf2] [--ps] [--source] [--text]\n[--to-stdout] [--tty] [--utf8] [--viewer prog] [--www] [--xhtml] [--x | --X]\n\noptions related to groff\n\n[-T | --device device] [-Z | --intermediate-output | --ditroff]\n\nAll further groff short options are accepted.\n\noptions for man pages\n\n[--apropos] [--apropos-data] [--apropos-devel] [--apropos-progs] [--man] [--no-man]\n[--no-special] [--whatis]\n\nlong options taken over from GNU man\n\n[--all] [--ascii] [--ditroff] [--extension suffix] [--locale language] [--local-file]\n[--location | --where] [--manpath dir1:dir2:...] [--no-location] [--pager program]\n[--sections sec1:sec2:...] [--systems sys1,sys2,...] [--troff-device device]\n\nFurther long options of GNU man are accepted as well.\n\noptions mapped to X Window System Toolkit Intrinsics options\n\n[--bd | --bordercolor pixels] [--bg | --background color]\n[--bw | --borderwidth pixels] [--display X-display] [--fg | --foreground color]\n[--fn | --ft | --font fontname] [--geometry sizepos] [--resolution value] [--rv]\n[--title string] [--xrm X-resource]\n\noptions for development\n\n[--debug] [--debug-filenames] [--debug-grog] [--debug-keep] [--debug-params]\n[--debug-tmpdir] [--do-nothing] [--print text] [-V]\n\nfilespec arguments\n\nThe filespec parameters are all arguments that are neither an option nor an option ar‐\ngument. They usually mean a file name or a man page searching scheme.\n\nIn the following, the term sectionextension is used. It means a word that consists\nof a man section that is optionally followed by an extension. The name of a man sec‐\ntion is a single character from [1––9on], the extension is some word. The extension is\nmostly lacking.\n\nNo filespec parameters means standard input.\n\n- stands for standard input (can occur several times).\n\nfilename the path name of an existing file.\n\nman:name(sectionextension)\nman:name.sectionextension\nname(sectionextension)\nname.sectionextension\nsectionextension name\nsearch the man page name in the section with optional extension sectionex‐\ntension.\n\nman:name man page in the lowest man section that has name.\n\nname if name is not an existing file search for the man page name in the lowest\nman section.\n", "subsections": [] }, "OPTION DETAILS": { "content": "The groffer program can usually be run with very few options. But for special purposes, it\nsupports many options. These can be classified in 5 option classes.\n\nAll short options of groffer are compatible with the short options of groff(1). All long op‐\ntions of groffer are compatible with the long options of man(1).\n\nArguments for long option names can be abbreviated in several ways. First, the argument is\nchecked whether it can be prolonged as is. Furthermore, each minus sign - is considered as a\nstarting point for a new abbreviation. This leads to a set of multiple abbreviations for a\nsingle argument. For example, --de-n-f can be used as an abbreviation for --debug-not-func,\nbut --de-n works as well. If the abbreviation of the argument leads to several resulting op‐\ntions an error is raised.\n\nThese abbreviations are only allowed in the environment variable GROFFEROPT, but not in the\nconfiguration files. In configuration, all long options must be exact.\n", "subsections": [ { "name": "groffer breaking Options", "content": "As soon as one of these options is found on the command line it is executed, printed to stan‐\ndard output, and the running groffer is terminated thereafter. All other arguments are ig‐\nnored.\n" }, { "name": "-h --help", "content": "Print help information with a short explanation of options to standard output.\n", "flag": "-h", "long": "--help" }, { "name": "-v --version", "content": "Print version information to standard output.\n", "flag": "-v", "long": "--version" }, { "name": "groffer Mode Options", "content": "The display mode and the viewer programs are determined by these options. If none of these\nmode and viewer options is specified groffer tries to find a suitable display mode automati‐\ncally. The default modes are mode pdf, mode ps, mode html, mode xhtml, mode x, and mode dvi\nin the X Window System with different viewers and mode tty with device utf8 under less on a\nterminal; other modes are tested if the programs for the main default mode do not exist.\n\nIn the X Window System, many programs create their own window when called. groffer can run\nthese viewers as an independent program in the background. As this does not work in text\nmode on a terminal (tty) there must be a way to know which viewers are X Window System-based\ngraphical programs. The groffer script has a small amount of information on some viewer\nnames. If a viewer argument of the command-line chooses an element that is recognized as an\nX Window System-based program in this list, it is treated as a viewer that can run in the\nbackground. Unrecognized viewers are not run in the background.\n\nFor each mode, you are free to choose whatever viewer you want. That need not be some graph‐\nical viewer suitable for this mode. There is a chance to view the output source; for exam‐\nple, the combination of the options --mode=ps and --viewer=less shows the content of the\nPostScript output, the source code, with the pager less.\n\n--auto Equivalent to --mode=auto.\n" }, { "name": "--default", "content": "Reset all configuration from previously processed command-line options to the default\nvalues. This is useful to wipe out all former options of the configuration, in\nGROFFEROPT, and restart option processing using only the rest of the command line.\n\n--default-modes mode1,mode2,...\nSet the sequence of modes for auto mode to the comma separated list given in the argu‐\nment. See --mode for details on modes. Display in the default manner; actually, this\nmeans to try the modes x, ps, and tty in this sequence.\n\n--dvi Equivalent to --mode=dvi. Known DVI viewers for the X Window System include xdvi(1)\nand dvilx(1).\n", "long": "--default" }, { "name": "--groff", "content": "Equivalent to --mode=groff.\n\n--html Equivalent to --mode=html.\n\n--mode value\nSet the display mode. The following mode values are recognized:\n\nauto Select the automatic determination of the display mode. The sequence of modes\nthat are tried can be set with the --default-modes option. Useful for restor‐\ning the default mode when a different mode was specified before.\n\ndvi Display formatted input in a DVI viewer program. By default, the formatted in‐\nput is displayed with the xdvi(1) program.\n\ngroff After the file determination, switch groffer to process the input like groff(1)\nwould do. This disables the groffer viewing features.\n\nhtml Translate the input into HTML format and display the result in a web browser\nprogram. By default, the existence of a sequence of standard web browsers is\ntested, starting with konqueror(1) and mozilla(1). The text HTML viewer is\nlynx(1). By default, the existence of a sequence of standard web browsers is\ntested, starting with konqueror(1) and mozilla(1). The text HTML viewer is\nlynx(1).\n\npdf Transform roff input files into a PDF file by using the groff (1) device -Tpdf.\nThis is the default PDF generator. The generated PDF file is displayed with\nsuitable viewer programs, such as okular(1).\n\npdf2 This is the traditional pdf mode. Sometimes this mode produces more correct\noutput than the default PDF mode. By default, the input is formatted by groff\nusing the PostScript device, then it is transformed into the PDF file format\nusing gs(1), or ps2pdf(1). If that's not possible, the PostScript mode (ps) is\nused instead. Finally it is displayed using different viewer programs.\n\nps Display formatted input in a PostScript viewer program. By default, the for‐\nmatted input is displayed in one of many viewer programs.\n\ntext Format in a groff text mode and write the result to standard output without a\npager or viewer program. The text device, latin1 by default, can be chosen\nwith option -T.\n\ntty Format in a groff text mode and write the result to standard output using a\ntext pager program, even when in the X Window System.\n\nwww Equivalent to --mode=html.\n\nx Display the formatted input in a native roff viewer. By default, the formatted\ninput is displayed with the gxditview(1) program being distributed together\nwith groff. But the legacy X Window System application xditview(1) can also be\nchosen with the option --viewer. The default resolution is 75dpi, but 100dpi\nare also possible. The default groff device for the resolution of 75dpi is\nX75-12, for 100dpi it is X100. The corresponding groff intermediate output for\nthe actual device is generated and the result is displayed. For a resolution\nof 100dpi, the default width of the geometry of the display program is chosen\nto 850dpi.\n\nX Equivalent to --mode=x.\n\nxhtml Translate the input into XHTML format, which is an XML version of HTML. Then\ndisplay the result in a web browser program, mostly the known HTML viewers.\n\nThe following modes do not use the groffer viewing features. They are only interest‐\ning for advanced applications.\n\ngroff Generate device output with plain groff without using the special viewing fea‐\ntures of groffer. If no device was specified by option -T the groff default ps\nis assumed.\n\nsource Output the roff source code of the input files without further processing.\n\n--pdf Equivalent to --mode=pdf.\n--pdf2 Equivalent to --mode=pdf2.\n\n--ps Equivalent to --mode=ps. Common PostScript viewers include okular(1), evince(1),\ngv(1), ghostview(1), and gs(1), In each case, arguments can be provided additionally.\n", "long": "--groff" }, { "name": "--source", "content": "Equivalent to --mode=source.\n\n--text Equivalent to --mode=text.\n", "long": "--source" }, { "name": "--to-stdout", "content": "The file for the chosen mode is generated and its content is printed to standard out‐\nput. It will not be displayed in graphical mode.\n\n--tty Equivalent to --mode=tty. The standard pager is less(1). This option is equivalent\nto man option --pager=prog. The option argument can be a file name or a program to be\nsearched in $PATH; arguments can be provided additionally.\n\n--viewer prog\nChoose a viewer program for actual device or mode. This can be a file name or a pro‐\ngram to be searched in $PATH; arguments can be provided additionally.\n\n--www Equivalent to --mode=html.\n\n--X | --x\nEquivalent to --mode=x. Suitable viewer programs are gxditview(1) which is the de‐\nfault and xditview(1).\n\n-- Signals the end of option processing; all remaining arguments are interpreted as\nfilespec parameters.\n\nBesides these, groffer accepts all short options that are valid for the groff(1) program.\nAll non-groffer options are sent unmodified via grog to groff. So postprocessors, macro\npackages, compatibility with classical troff, and much more can be manually specified.\n", "long": "--to-stdout" }, { "name": "Options related to groff", "content": "All short options of groffer are compatible with the short options of groff(1). The follow‐\ning of groff options have either an additional special meaning within groffer or make sense\nfor normal usage.\n\nBecause of the special outputting behavior of the groff option -Z groffer was designed to be\nswitched into groff mode; the groffer viewing features are disabled there. The other groff\noptions do not switch the mode, but allow to customize the formatting process.\n\n--a This generates an ASCII approximation of output in the text modes. That could be im‐\nportant when the text pager has problems with control sequences in tty mode.\n\n--m file\nAdd file as a groff macro file. This is useful in case it cannot be recognized auto‐\nmatically.\n\n--P optorarg\nSend the argument optorarg as an option or option argument to the actual groff post‐\nprocessor.\n\n--T devname | --device devname\nThis option determines groff's output device. The most important devices are the text\noutput devices for referring to the different character sets, such as ascii, utf8,\nlatin1, utf8, and others. Each of these arguments switches groffer into a text mode\nusing this device, to mode tty if the actual mode is not a text mode. The following\ndevname arguments are mapped to the corresponding groffer --mode=devname option: dvi,\nhtml, xhtml, and ps. All X* arguments are mapped to mode x. Each other devname argu‐\nment switches to mode groff using this device.\n\n--X is equivalent to groff -X. It displays the groff intermediate output with gxditview.\nAs the quality is relatively bad this option is deprecated; use --X instead because\nthe x mode uses an X* device for a better display.\n" }, { "name": "-Z --intermediate-output --ditroff", "content": "Switch into groff mode and format the input with the groff intermediate output without\npostprocessing; see groffout(5). This is equivalent to option --ditroff of man,\nwhich can be used as well.\n\nAll other groff options are supported by groffer, but they are just transparently transferred\nto groff without any intervention. The options that are not explicitly handled by groffer\nare transparently passed to groff. Therefore these transparent options are not documented\nhere, but in groff(1). Due to the automatism in groffer, none of these groff options should\nbe needed, except for advanced usage.\n", "flag": "-Z", "long": "--ditroff" }, { "name": "Options for man pages", "content": "" }, { "name": "--apropos", "content": "Start the apropos(1) command or facility of man(1) for searching the filespec argu‐\nments within all man page descriptions. Each filespec argument is taken for search as\nit is; section specific parts are not handled, such that 7 groff searches for the two\narguments 7 and groff, with a large result; for the filespec groff.7 nothing will be\nfound. The language locale is handled only when the called programs do support this;\nthe GNU apropos and man -k do not. The display differs from the apropos program by\nthe following concepts:\n\n* Construct a groff frame similar to a man page to the output of apropos,\n\n* each filespec argument is searched on its own.\n\n* The restriction by --sections is handled as well,\n\n* wildcard characters are allowed and handled without a further option.\n", "long": "--apropos" }, { "name": "--apropos-data", "content": "Show only the apropos descriptions for data documents, these are the man(7) sec‐\ntions 4, 5, and 7. Direct section declarations are ignored, wildcards are accepted.\n", "long": "--apropos-data" }, { "name": "--apropos-devel", "content": "Show only the apropos descriptions for development documents, these are the man(7)\nsections 2, 3, and 9. Direct section declarations are ignored, wildcards are ac‐\ncepted.\n", "long": "--apropos-devel" }, { "name": "--apropos-progs", "content": "Show only the apropos descriptions for documents on programs, these are the man(7)\nsections 1, 6, and 8. Direct section declarations are ignored, wildcards are ac‐\ncepted.\n", "long": "--apropos-progs" }, { "name": "--whatis", "content": "For each filespec argument search all man pages and display their description — or say\nthat it is not a man page. This is written from anew, so it differs from man's whatis\noutput by the following concepts\n\n* each retrieved file name is added,\n\n* local files are handled as well,\n\n* the language and system locale is supported,\n\n* the display is framed by a groff output format similar to a man page,\n\n* wildcard characters are allowed without a further option.\n\nThe following options were added to groffer for choosing whether the file name arguments are\ninterpreted as names for local files or as a search pattern for man pages. The default is\nlooking up for local files.\n\n--man Check the non-option command-line arguments (filespecs) first on being man pages, then\nwhether they represent an existing file. By default, a filespec is first tested\nwhether it is an existing file.\n\n--no-man | --local-file\nDo not check for man pages. --local-file is the corresponding man option.\n", "long": "--whatis" }, { "name": "--no-special", "content": "Disable former calls of --all, --apropos*, and --whatis.\n", "long": "--no-special" }, { "name": "Long options taken over from GNU man", "content": "The long options of groffer were synchronized with the long options of GNU man. All long op‐\ntions of GNU man are recognized, but not all of these options are important to groffer, so\nmost of them are just ignored. These ignored man options are --catman, --troff, and --up‐‐\ndate.\n\nIn the following, the man options that have a special meaning for groffer are documented.\n\nIf your system has GNU man installed the full set of long and short options of the GNU man\nprogram can be passed via the environment variable MANOPT; see man(1).\n\n--all In searching man pages, retrieve all suitable documents instead of only one.\n" }, { "name": "-7 --ascii", "content": "In text modes, display ASCII translation of special characters for critical environ‐\nment. This is equivalent to groff -mttychar; see grofftmac(5).\n", "flag": "-7", "long": "--ascii" }, { "name": "--ditroff", "content": "Produce groff intermediate output. This is equivalent to groffer -Z.\n\n--extension suffix\nRestrict man page search to file names that have suffix appended to their section ele‐\nment. For example, in the file name /usr/share/man/man3/terminfo.3ncurses.gz the\nman page extension is ncurses.\n\n--locale language\nSet the language for man pages. This has the same effect, but overwrites $LANG.\n", "long": "--ditroff" }, { "name": "--location", "content": "Print the location of the retrieved files to standard error.\n", "long": "--location" }, { "name": "--no-location", "content": "Do not display the location of retrieved files; this resets a former call to --loca‐‐\ntion. This was added by groffer.\n\n--manpath 'dir1:dir2:...'\nUse the specified search path for retrieving man pages instead of the program de‐\nfaults. If the argument is set to the empty string \"\" the search for man page is dis‐\nabled.\n", "long": "--no-location" }, { "name": "--pager", "content": "Set the pager program in tty mode; default is less. This can be set with --viewer.\n\n--sections sec1:sec2:...\nRestrict searching for man pages to the given sections, a colon-separated list.\n\n--systems sys1,sys2,...\nSearch for man pages for the given operating systems; the argument systems is a comma-\nseparated list.\n", "long": "--pager" }, { "name": "--where", "content": "Equivalent to --location.\n", "long": "--where" }, { "name": "X Window System Toolkit Intrinsics Options", "content": "The following long options were adapted from the corresponding X Window System Toolkit In‐\ntrinsics options. groffer will pass them to the actual viewer program if it is an X Window\nSystem program. Otherwise these options are ignored.\n\nUnfortunately these options use the old style of a single minus for long options. For\ngroffer that was changed to the standard with using a double minus for long options, for ex‐\nample, groffer uses the option --font for the X Window System Toolkit Intrinsics option" }, { "name": "-font", "content": "See X(7) and the manual X Toolkit Intrinsics – C Language Interface for more details on these\noptions and their arguments.\n\n--background color\nSet the background color of the viewer window.\n\n--bd pixels\nThis is equivalent to --bordercolor.\n\n--bg color\nThis is equivalent to --background.\n\n--bw pixels\nThis is equivalent to --borderwidth.\n\n--bordercolor pixels\nSpecifies the color of the border surrounding the viewer window.\n\n--borderwidth pixels\nSpecifies the width in pixels of the border surrounding the viewer window.\n\n--display X-display\nSet the X Window System display on which the viewer program shall be started. See\nsection “Display Names” in X(7) for the syntax of the argument.\n\n--foreground color\nSet the foreground color of the viewer window.\n\n--fg color\nThis is equivalent to --foreground.\n\n--fn fontname\nThis is equivalent to --font.\n\n--font fontname\nSet the font used by the viewer window. The argument is an X Window System font name.\n\n--ft fontname\nThis is equivalent to --font.\n\n--geometry sizepos\nSet the geometry of the display window, that means its size and its starting position.\nSee section “Geometry Specifications” in X(7) for the syntax of the argument.\n\n--resolution value\nSet X Window System resolution in dpi (dots per inch) in some viewer programs. The\nonly supported dpi values are 75 and 100. Actually, the default resolution for\ngroffer is set to 75dpi. The resolution also sets the default device in mode x.\n\n--rv Reverse foreground and background color of the viewer window.\n\n--title 'some text'\nSet the title for the viewer window.\n\n--xrm 'resource'\nSet the X Window System server resource to the given value.\n" }, { "name": "Options for Development", "content": "" }, { "name": "--debug", "content": "Enable all debugging options --debug-type. The temporary files are kept and not\ndeleted, the grog output is printed, the name of the temporary directory is printed,\nthe displayed file names are printed, and the parameters are printed.\n", "long": "--debug" }, { "name": "--debug-filenames", "content": "Print the names of the files and man pages that are displayed by groffer.\n", "long": "--debug-filenames" }, { "name": "--debug-grog", "content": "Print the output of all grog commands.\n", "long": "--debug-grog" }, { "name": "--debug-keep", "content": "Enable two debugging informations. Print the name of the temporary directory and keep\nthe temporary files, do not delete them during the run of groffer.\n", "long": "--debug-keep" }, { "name": "--debug-params", "content": "Print the parameters, as obtained from the configuration files, from GROFFEROPT, and\nthe command-line arguments.\n", "long": "--debug-params" }, { "name": "--debug-tmpdir", "content": "Print the name of the temporary directory.\n", "long": "--debug-tmpdir" }, { "name": "--do-nothing", "content": "This is like --version, but without the output; no viewer is started. This makes only\nsense in development.\n\n--print=text\nJust print the argument to standard error. This is good for parameter check.\n", "long": "--do-nothing" }, { "name": "-V", "content": "input, a lot of groffer specific information is printed to standard output:\n\n* the output file name in the temporary directory,\n\n* the display mode of the actual groffer run,\n\n* the display program for viewing the output with its arguments,\n\n* the active parameters from the config files, the arguments in GROFFEROPT, and the\narguments of the command line,\n\n* the pipeline that would be run by the groff program, but without executing it.\n\nOther useful debugging options are the groff option -Z and --mode=groff.\n", "flag": "-V" }, { "name": "Filespec Arguments", "content": "A filespec parameter is an argument that is not an option or option argument. In groffer,\nfilespec parameters are a file name or a template for searching man pages. These input\nsources are collected and composed into a single output file such as groff does.\n\nThe strange POSIX behavior to regard all arguments behind the first non-option argument as\nfilespec arguments is ignored. The GNU behavior to recognize options even when mixed with\nfilespec arguments is used throughout. But, as usual, the double minus argument -- ends the\noption handling and interprets all following arguments as filespec arguments; so the POSIX\nbehavior can be easily adopted.\n\nThe options --apropos* have a special handling of filespec arguments. Each argument is taken\nas a search scheme of its own. Also a regexp (regular expression) can be used in the file‐\nspec. For example, groffer --apropos '^gro.f$' searches groff in the man page name, while\ngroffer --apropos groff searches groff somewhere in the name or description of the man pages.\n\nAll other parts of groffer, such as the normal display or the output with --whatis have a\ndifferent scheme for filespecs. No regular expressions are used for the arguments. The\nfilespec arguments are handled by the following scheme.\n\nIt is necessary to know that on each system the man pages are sorted according to their con‐\ntent into several sections. The classical man sections have a single-character name, either\na digit from 1 to 9 or one of the characters n or o.\n\nThis can optionally be followed by a string, the so-called extension. The extension allows\nthe storage of several man pages with the same name in the same section. But the extension\nis only rarely used; usually it is omitted. Then the extensions are searched automatically\nby alphabet.\n\nIn the following, we use the name sectionextension for a word that consists of a single\ncharacter section name or a section character that is followed by an extension. Each\nfilespec parameter can have one of the following forms in decreasing sequence.\n\n* No filespec parameters means that groffer waits for standard input. The minus option - al‐\nways stands for standard input; it can occur several times. If you want to look up a\nman page called - use the argument man:-.\n\n* Next a filespec is tested whether it is the path name of an existing file. Otherwise it is\nassumed to be a searching pattern for a man page.\n\n* man:name(sectionextension), man:name.sectionextension, name(sectionextension), or\nname.sectionextension search the man page name in man section and possibly extension of\nsectionextension.\n\n* Now man:name searches for a man page in the lowest man section that has a document called\nname.\n\n* sectionextension name is a pattern of 2 arguments that originates from a strange argument\nparsing of the man program. Again, this searches the man page name with sectionextension,\na combination of a section character optionally followed by an extension.\n\n* We are left with the argument name which is not an existing file. So this searches for the\nman page called name in the lowest man section that has a document for this name.\n\nSeveral file name arguments can be supplied. They are mixed by groff into a single document.\nNote that the set of option arguments must fit to all of these file arguments. So they\nshould have at least the same style of the groff language.\n" } ] }, "OUTPUT MODES": { "content": "By default, the groffer program collects all input into a single file, formats it with the\ngroff program for a certain device, and then chooses a suitable viewer program. The device\nand viewer process in groffer is called a mode. The mode and viewer of a running groffer\nprogram is selected automatically, but the user can also choose it with options. The modes\nare selected by option the arguments of --mode=anymode. Additionally, each of this argument\ncan be specified as an option of its own, such as anymode. Most of these modes have a viewer\nprogram, which can be chosen by the option --viewer.\n\nSeveral different modes are offered: graphical modes for the X Window System, text modes, and\nsome direct groff modes for debugging and development.\n\nBy default, groffer first tries whether x mode is possible, then ps mode, and finally\ntty mode. This mode testing sequence for auto mode can be changed by specifying a comma sep‐\narated list of modes with the option --default-modes.\n\nThe searching for man pages and the decompression of the input are active in every mode.\n", "subsections": [ { "name": "Graphical Display Modes", "content": "The graphical display modes work mostly in the X Window System environment (or similar imple‐\nmentations within other windowing environments). The environment variable DISPLAY and the\noption --display are used for specifying the X Window System display to be used. If this en‐\nvironment variable is empty, groffer assumes that the X Window System is not running and\nchanges to a text mode. You can change this automatic behavior by the option --de‐‐\nfault-modes.\n\nKnown viewers for the graphical display modes and their standard X Window System viewer pro‐\ngrams are\n\n* in a PDF viewer (pdf mode)\n\n* in a web browser (html, (xhtml, or www mode)\n\n* in a PostScript viewer (ps mode)\n\n* X Window System roff viewers such as gxditview(1) or xditview(1) (in x mode)\n\n* in a DVI viewer program (dvi mode)\n\nThe pdf mode has a major advantage — it is the only graphical display mode that allows\nsearching for text within the viewer; this can be a really important feature. Unfortunately,\nit takes some time to transform the input into the PDF format, so it was not chosen as the\nmajor mode.\n\nThese graphical viewers can be customized by options of the X Window System Toolkit Intrin‐\nsics. But the groffer options use a leading double minus instead of the single minus used by\nthe X Window System Toolkit Intrinsics.\n" }, { "name": "Text modes", "content": "There are two modes for text output, mode text for plain output without a pager and mode tty\nfor a text output on a text terminal using some pager program.\n\nIf the variable DISPLAY is not set or empty, groffer assumes that it should use tty mode.\n\nIn the actual implementation, the groff output device latin1 is chosen for text modes. This\ncan be changed by specifying option -T or --device.\n\nThe pager to be used can be specified by one of the options --pager and --viewer, or by the\nenvironment variable PAGER. If all of this is not used the less(1) program with the option" }, { "name": "-r", "content": "", "flag": "-r" }, { "name": "Special Modes for Debugging and Development", "content": "These modes use the groffer file determination and decompression. This is combined into a\nsingle input file that is fed directly into groff with different strategy without the groffer\nviewing facilities. These modes are regarded as advanced, they are useful for debugging and\ndevelopment purposes.\n\nThe source mode with option --source just displays the decompressed input.\n\nOption --to-stdout does not display in a graphical mode. It just generates the file for the\nchosen mode and then prints its content to standard output.\n\nThe groff mode passes the input to groff using only some suitable options provided to\ngroffer. This enables the user to save the generated output into a file or pipe it into an‐\nother program.\n\nIn groff mode, the option -Z disables post-processing, thus producing the groff intermediate\noutput. In this mode, the input is formatted, but not postprocessed; see groffout(5) for\ndetails.\n\nAll groff short options are supported by groffer.\n" } ] }, "MAN PAGE SEARCHING": { "content": "The default behavior of groffer is to first test whether a file parameter represents a local\nfile; if it is not an existing file name, it is assumed to represent the name of a man page.\nThe following options can be used to determine whether the arguments should be handled as\nfile name or man page arguments.\n\n--man forces to interpret all file parameters as filespecs for searching man pages.\n", "subsections": [ { "name": "--no-man", "content": "", "long": "--no-man" }, { "name": "--local-file", "content": "disable the man searching; so only local files are displayed.\n\nIf neither a local file nor a man page was retrieved for some file parameter a warning is is‐\nsued on standard error, but processing is continued.\n", "long": "--local-file" }, { "name": "Search Algorithm", "content": "Let us now assume that a man page should be searched. The groffer program provides a search\nfacility for man pages. All long options, all environment variables, and most of the func‐\ntionality of the GNU man(1) program were implemented. The search algorithm shall determine\nwhich file is displayed for a given man page. The process can be modified by options and en‐\nvironment variables.\n\nThe only man action that is omitted in groffer are the preformatted man pages, also called\ncat pages. With the excellent performance of the actual computers, the preformatted\nman pages aren't necessary any longer. Additionally, groffer is a roff program; it wants to\nread roff source files and format them itself.\n\nThe algorithm for retrieving the file for a man page needs first a set of directories. This\nset starts with the so-called man path that is modified later on by adding names of operating\nsystem and language. This arising set is used for adding the section directories which con‐\ntain the man page files.\n\nThe man path is a list of directories that are separated by colon. It is generated by the\nfollowing methods.\n\n* The environment variable MANPATH can be set.\n\n* It can be read from the arguments of the environment variable MANOPT.\n\n* The man path can be manually specified by using the option --manpath. An empty argument\ndisables the man page searching.\n\n* When no man path was set the manpath(1) program is tried to determine one.\n\n* If this does not work a reasonable default path from $PATH is determined.\n\nWe now have a starting set of directories. The first way to change this set is by adding\nnames of operating systems. This assumes that man pages for several operating systems are\ninstalled. This is not always true. The names of such operating systems can be provided by\n3 methods.\n\n* The environment variable SYSTEM has the lowest precedence.\n\n* This can be overridden by an option in MANOPT.\n\n* This again is overridden by the command-line option --systems.\n\nSeveral names of operating systems can be given by appending their names, separated by a com‐\nma.\n\nThe man path is changed by appending each system name as subdirectory at the end of each di‐\nrectory of the set. No directory of the man path set is kept. But if no system name is\nspecified the man path is left unchanged.\n\nAfter this, the actual set of directories can be changed by language information. This as‐\nsumes that there exist man pages in different languages. The wanted language can be chosen\nby several methods.\n\n* Environment variable LANG.\n\n* This is overridden by LCMESSAGES.\n\n* This is overridden by LCALL.\n\n* This can be overridden by providing an option in MANOPT.\n\n* All these environment variables are overridden by the command-line option --locale.\n\nThe default language can be specified by specifying one of the pseudo-language parameters C\nor POSIX. This is like deleting a formerly given language information. The man pages in the\ndefault language are usually in English.\n\nOf course, the language name is determined by man. In GNU man, it is specified in the\nPOSIX 1003.1 based format:\n\n[[.[,]]],\n\nbut the two-letter code in is sufficient for most purposes. If for a complicated\nlanguage formulation no man pages are found groffer searches the country part consisting of\nthese first two characters as well.\n\nThe actual directory set is copied thrice. The language name is appended as subdirectory to\neach directory in the first copy of the actual directory set (this is only done when a lan‐\nguage information is given). Then the 2-letter abbreviation of the language name is appended\nas subdirectories to the second copy of the directory set (this is only done when the given\nlanguage name has more than 2 letters). The third copy of the directory set is kept un‐\nchanged (if no language information is given this is the kept directory set). These maximal‐\nly 3 copies are appended to get the new directory set.\n\nWe now have a complete set of directories to work with. In each of these directories, the\nman files are separated in sections. The name of a section is represented by a single char‐\nacter, a digit between 1 and 9, or the character o or n, in this order.\n\nFor each available section, a subdirectory man
exists containing all man files for\nthis section, where
is a single character as described before. Each man file in a\nsection directory has the form man
/.
[][.],\nwhere and are optional. is the name of the man page that is\nalso specified as filespec argument on the command line.\n\nThe extension is an addition to the section. This postfix acts like a subsection. An exten‐\nsion occurs only in the file name, not in name of the section subdirectory. It can be speci‐\nfied on the command line.\n\nOn the other hand, the compression is just an information on how the file is compressed.\nThis is not important for the user, such that it cannot be specified on the command line.\n\nThere are 4 methods to specify a section on the command line:\n\n* Environment variable MANSECT\n\n* Command line option --sections\n\n* Appendix to the name argument in the form .
\n\n* Preargument before the name argument in the form
\n\nIt is also possible to specify several sections by appending the single characters separated\nby colons. One can imagine that this means to restrict the man page search to only some sec‐\ntions. The multiple sections are only possible for MANSECT and --sections.\n\nIf no section is specified all sections are searched one after the other in the given order,\nstarting with section 1, until a suitable file is found.\n\nThere are 4 methods to specify an extension on the command line. But it is not necessary to\nprovide the whole extension name, some abbreviation is good enough in most cases.\n\n* Environment variable EXTENSION\n\n* Command line option --extension\n\n* Appendix to the .
argument in the form .
\n\n* Preargument before the name argument in the form
\n\nFor further details on man page searching, see man(1).\n" }, { "name": "Examples of man files", "content": "" }, { "name": "/usr/share/man/man1/groff.1", "content": "This is an uncompressed file for the man page groff in section 1. It can be called by\nsh# groffer groff\nNo section is specified here, so all sections should be searched, but as section 1 is\nsearched first this file will be found first. The file name is composed of the fol‐\nlowing components. /usr/share/man/ must be part of the man path; the subdirectory\nman1/ and the part .1 stand for the section; groff is the name of the man page.\n" }, { "name": "/usr/local/share/man/man7/groff.7.gz", "content": "The file name is composed of the following components. /usr/local/share/man must be\npart of the man path; the subdirectory man7/ and the part .7 stand for the section;\ngroff is the name of the man page; the final part .gz stands for a compression with\ngzip(1). As the section is not the first one it must be specified as well. This can\nbe done by one of the following commands.\nsh# groffer groff.7\nsh# groffer 7 groff\nsh# groffer --sections=7 groff\n" }, { "name": "/usr/local/man/man1/ctags.1emacs21.bz2", "content": "Here /usr/local/man must be in man path; the subdirectory man1/ and the file name part\n.1 stand for section 1; the name of the man page is ctags; the section has an exten‐\nsion emacs21; and the file is compressed as .bz2 with bzip2(1). The file can be\nviewed with one of the following commands\nsh# groffer ctags.1e\nsh# groffer 1e ctags\nsh# groffer --extension=e --sections=1 ctags\nwhere e works as an abbreviation for the extension emacs21.\n" }, { "name": "/usr/man/linux/de/man7/man.7.Z", "content": "The directory /usr/man is now part of the man path; then there is a subdirectory for\nan operating system name linux/; next comes a subdirectory de/ for the German lan‐\nguage; the section names man7 and .7 are known so far; man is the name of the\nman page; and .Z signifies the compression that can be handled by gzip(1). We want\nnow show how to provide several values for some options. That is possible for sec‐\ntions and operating system names. So we use as sections 5 and 7 and as system names\nlinux and aix. The command is then\n\nsh# groffer --locale=de --sections=5:7 --systems=linux,aix man\nsh# LANG=de MANSECT=5:7 SYSTEM=linux,aix groffer man\n" } ] }, "DECOMPRESSION": { "content": "The program has a decompression facility. If standard input or a file that was retrieved\nfrom the command line parameters is compressed with a format that is supported by either\ngzip(1) or bzip2(1) it is decompressed on-the-fly. This includes the GNU .gz, .bz2, and the\ntraditional .Z compression. The program displays the concatenation of all decompressed input\nin the sequence that was specified on the command line.\n", "subsections": [] }, "ENVIRONMENT": { "content": "The groffer program supports many system variables, most of them by courtesy of other pro‐\ngrams. All environment variables of groff(1) and GNU man(1) and some standard system vari‐\nables are honored.\n", "subsections": [ { "name": "Native groffer Variables", "content": "GROFFEROPT\nStore options for a run of groffer. The options specified in this variable are over‐\nridden by the options given on the command line. The content of this variable is run\nthrough the shell builtin “eval”, so arguments containing whitespace or special shell\ncharacters should be quoted. Do not forget to export this variable, otherwise it does\nnot exist during the run of groffer.\n" }, { "name": "System Variables", "content": "The following variables have a special meaning for groffer.\n\nDISPLAY\nIf set, this variable indicates that the X Window System is running. Testing this\nvariable decides on whether graphical or text output is generated. This variable\nshould not be changed by the user carelessly, but it can be used to start the graphi‐\ncal groffer on a remote X Window System terminal. For example, depending on your sys‐\ntem, groffer can be started on the second monitor by the command\n\nsh# DISPLAY=:0.1 groffer what.ever &\n\nLCALL\nLCMESSAGES\nLANG If one of these variables is set (in the above sequence), its content is interpreted\nas the locale, the language to be used, especially when retrieving man pages. A lo‐\ncale name is typically of the form language[territory[.codeset[@modifier]]], where\nlanguage is an ISO 639 language code, territory is an ISO 3166 country code, and\ncodeset is a character set or encoding identifier like ISO-8859-1 or UTF-8; see\nsetlocale(3). The locale values C and POSIX stand for the default, i.e. the man page\ndirectories without a language prefix. This is the same behavior as when all 3 vari‐\nables are unset.\n\nPAGER This variable can be used to set the pager for the tty output. For example, to dis‐\nable the use of a pager completely set this variable to the cat(1) program\n\nsh# PAGER=cat groffer anything\n\n\nPATH All programs within the groffer script are called without a fixed path. Thus this en‐\nvironment variable determines the set of programs used within the run of groffer.\n" }, { "name": "Groff Variables", "content": "The groffer program internally calls groff, so all environment variables documented in\ngroff(1) are internally used within groffer as well. The following variable has a direct\nmeaning for the groffer program.\n\nGROFFTMPDIR\nIf the value of this variable is an existing, writable directory, groffer uses it for\nstoring its temporary files, just as groff does. See the groff(1) man page for more\ndetails on the location of temporary files.\n" }, { "name": "Man Variables", "content": "Parts of the functionality of the man program were implemented in groffer; support for all\nenvironment variables documented in man(1) was added to groffer, but the meaning was slightly\nmodified due to the different approach in groffer; but the user interface is the same. The\nman environment variables can be overwritten by options provided with MANOPT, which in turn\nis overwritten by the command line.\n\nEXTENSION\nRestrict the search for man pages to files having this extension. This is overridden\nby option --extension; see there for details.\n\nMANOPT This variable contains options as a preset for man(1). As not all of these are rele‐\nvant for groffer only the essential parts of its value are extracted. The options\nspecified in this variable overwrite the values of the other environment variables\nthat are specific to man. All options specified in this variable are overridden by\nthe options given on the command line.\n\nMANPATH\nIf set, this variable contains the directories in which the man page trees are stored.\nThis is overridden by option --manpath.\n\nMANSECT\nIf this is a colon separated list of section names, the search for man pages is re‐\nstricted to those manual sections in that order. This is overridden by option --sec‐‐\ntions.\n\nSYSTEM If this is set to a comma separated list of names these are interpreted as man page\ntrees for different operating systems. This variable can be overwritten by option\n--systems; see there for details.\n\nThe environment variable MANROFFSEQ is ignored by groffer because the necessary preprocessors\nare determined automatically.\n" } ] }, "CONFIGURATION FILES": { "content": "The groffer program can be preconfigured by two configuration files.\n", "subsections": [ { "name": "/etc/groff/groffer.conf", "content": "System-wide configuration file for groffer.\n" }, { "name": "$HOME/.groff/groffer.conf", "content": "User-specific configuration file for groffer, where $HOME denotes the user's home di‐\nrectory. This file is called after the system-wide configuration file to enable over‐\nriding by the user.\n\nBoth files are handled for the configuration, but the configuration file in /etc comes first;\nit is overwritten by the configuration file in the home directory; both configuration files\nare overwritten by the environment variable GROFFEROPT; everything is overwritten by the\ncommand line arguments.\n\nThe configuration files contain options that should be called as default for every groffer\nrun. These options are written in lines such that each contains either a long option, a\nshort option, or a short option cluster; each with or without an argument. So each line with\nconfiguration information starts with a minus character “-”; a line with a long option starts\nwith two minus characters “--”, a line with a short option or short option cluster starts\nwith a single minus “-”.\n\nThe option names in the configuration files may not be abbreviated, they must be exact.\n\nThe argument for a long option can be separated from the option name either by an equal sign\n“=” or by whitespace, i.e. one or several space or tab characters. An argument for a short\noption or short option cluster can be directly appended to the option name or separated by\nwhitespace. The end of an argument is the end of the line. It is not allowed to use a shell\nenvironment variable in an option name or argument.\n\nIt is not necessary to use quotes in an option or argument, except for empty arguments. An\nempty argument can be provided by appending a pair of quotes to the separating equal sign or\nwhitespace; with a short option, the separator can be omitted as well. For a long option\nwith a separating equal sign “=”, the pair of quotes can be omitted, thus ending the line\nwith the separating equal sign. All other quote characters are cancelled internally.\n\nIn the configuration files, arbitrary whitespace is allowed at the beginning of each line, it\nis just ignored. Each whitespace within a line is replaced by a single space character “ ”\ninternally.\n\nAll lines of the configuration lines that do not start with a minus character are ignored,\nsuch that comments starting with “#” are possible. So there are no shell commands in the\nconfiguration files.\n\nAs an example, consider the following configuration file that can be used either in\n/etc/groff/groffer.conf or ~/.groff/groffer.conf .\n\n# groffer configuration file\n#\n# groffer options that are used in each call of groffer\n--foreground=DarkBlue\n--resolution=100\n--viewer=gxditview -geometry 900x1200\n\nThe lines starting with # are just ignored, so they act as command lines. This configuration\nsets four groffer options (the lines starting with “-”). This has the following effects:\n\n* Use a text color of DarkBlue in all viewers that support this, such as gxditview.\n\n* Use a resolution of 100dpi in all viewers that support this, such as gxditview. By this,\nthe default device in x mode is set to X100.\n\n* Force gxditview(1) as the x-mode viewer using the geometry option for setting the width to\n900px and the height to 1200px. This geometry is suitable for a resolution of 100dpi.\n\n* Use xpdf(1) as the pdf-mode viewer with the argument -Z 150.\n" } ] }, "EXAMPLES": { "content": "The usage of groffer is very easy. Usually, it is just called with a file name or man page.\nThe following examples, however, show that groffer has much more fancy capabilities.\n\nsh# groffer /usr/local/share/doc/groff/meintro.ms.gz\n\nDecompress, format and display the compressed file meintro.ms.gz in the directory /usr/lo‐‐\ncal/share/doc/groff, using the standard viewer gxditview as graphical viewer when in the X\nWindow System, or the less(1) pager program otherwise.\n\nsh# groffer groff\n\nIf the file ./groff exists use it as input. Otherwise interpret the argument as a search for\nthe man page named groff in the smallest possible man section, being section 1 in this case.\n\nsh# groffer man:groff\n\nsearch for the man page of groff even when the file ./groff exists.\n\nsh# groffer groff.7\nsh# groffer 7 groff\n\nsearch the man page of groff in man section 7. This section search works only for a digit or\na single character from a small set.\n\nsh# groffer fb.modes\n\nIf the file ./fb.modes does not exist interpret this as a search for the man page of\nfb.modes. As the extension modes is not a single character in classical section style the\nargument is not split to a search for fb.\n\nsh# groffer groff ’troff(1)’ man:roff\n\nThe arguments that are not existing files are looked-up as the following man pages: groff\n(automatic search, should be found in man section 1), troff (in section 1), and roff (in the\nsection with the lowest number, being 7 in this case). The quotes around ’troff(1)’ are nec‐\nessary because the parentheses are special shell characters; escaping them with a backslash\ncharacter \\( and \\) would be possible, too. The formatted files are concatenated and dis‐\nplayed in one piece.\n\nsh# LANG=de groffer --man --viewer=galeon ls\n\nRetrieve the German man page (language de) for the ls program, decompress it, format it to\nhtml or xhtml format (www mode) and view the result in the web browser galeon. The option\n--man guarantees that the man page is retrieved, even when a local file ls exists in the ac‐\ntual directory.\n\nsh# groffer --source 'man:roff(7)'\n\nGet the man page called roff in man section 7, decompress it, and print its unformatted con‐\ntent, its source code.\n\nsh# groffer --de-p --in --ap\n\nThis is a set of abbreviated arguments, it is determined as\n\nsh# groffer --debug-params --intermediate-output --apropos\n\n\nsh# cat file.gz | groffer -Z -mfoo\n\nThe file file.gz is sent to standard input, this is decompressed, and then this is trans‐\nported to the groff intermediate output mode without post-processing (groff option -Z), using\nmacro package foo (groff option -m).\n\nsh# echo '\\f(CBWOW!' |\n> groffer --x --bg red --fg yellow --geometry 200x100 -\n\nDisplay the word WOW! in a small window in constant-width bold font, using color yellow on\nred background.\n", "subsections": [] }, "COMPATIBILITY": { "content": "The groffer program is written in Perl, the Perl version during writing was v5.8.8.\n\ngroffer provides its own parser for command-line arguments that is compatible to both POSIX\ngetopts(1) and GNU getopt(1). It can handle option arguments and file names containing white\nspace and a large set of special characters. The following standard types of options are\nsupported.\n\n* The option consisting of a single minus - refers to standard input.\n\n* A single minus followed by characters refers to a single character option or a combination\nthereof; for example, the groffer short option combination -Qmfoo is equivalent to\n-Q -m foo.\n\n* Long options are options with names longer than one character; they are always preceded by\na double minus. An option argument can either go to the next command-line argument or be\nappended with an equal sign to the argument; for example, --long=arg is equivalent to\n--long arg.\n\n* An argument of -- ends option parsing; all further command-line arguments are interpreted\nas filespec parameters, i.e. file names or constructs for searching man pages).\n\n* All command-line arguments that are neither options nor option arguments are interpreted as\nfilespec parameters and stored until option parsing has finished. For example, the command\nline\n\nsh# groffer file1 -a -o arg file2\n\nis equivalent to\n\nsh# groffer -a -o arg -- file1 file2\n\n\nThe free mixing of options and filespec parameters follows the GNU principle. That does not\nfulfill the strange option behavior of POSIX that ends option processing as soon as the first\nnon-option argument has been reached. The end of option processing can be forced by the op‐\ntion “--” anyway.\n", "subsections": [] }, "AUTHORS": { "content": "groffer was written by Bernd Warken ⟨groff-bernd.warken-72@web.de⟩.\n", "subsections": [] }, "SEE ALSO": { "content": "groff(1), troff(1)\nDetails on the options and environment variables available in groff; all of them can\nbe used with groffer.\n\ngrog(1)\nThis program tries to guess the necessary groff command-line options from the input\nand the groffer options.\n\ngroff(7)\nDocumentation of the groff language.\n\ngroffchar(7)\nDocumentation on the groff characters, special characters, and glyphs..\n\ngrofftmac(5)\nDocumentation on the groff macro files.\n\ngroffout(5)\nDocumentation on the groff intermediate output before the run of a postprocessor.\n(ditroff output). This can be run by the groff or groffer option -Z.\n\nman(1) The standard program to display man pages. The information there is only useful if it\nis the man page for GNU man. Then it documents the options and environment variables\nthat are supported by groffer.\n\ngxditview(1)\nxditview(1x)\nViewers for groffer's x mode.\n\nkpdf(1)\nkghostview(1)\nevince(1)\nggv(1)\ngv(1)\nghostview(1)\ngs(1) Viewers for groffer's ps mode.\n\nkpdf(1)\nacroread(1)\nevince(1)\nxpdf(1)\ngpdf(1)\nkghostview(1)\nggv(1) Viewers for groffer's pdf mode.\n\nkdvi(1), xdvi(1), dvilx(1)\nViewers for groffer's dvi mode.\n\nkonqueror(1)\nepiphany(1)\nfirefox(1)\nmozilla(1)\nnetscape(1)\nlynx(1)\nWeb-browsers for groffer's html, xhtml, or www mode.\n\nless(1)\nmore(1)\nStandard pager program for the tty mode.\n\ngzip(1)\nbzip2(1)\nxz(1) The decompression programs supported by groffer.\n\n\n\ngroff 1.22.4 23 March 2022 GROFFER(1)", "subsections": [] } } } }