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The groffer program also includes many of the features for finding and displaying the CR]Unix] manual pages (man~pages), such that it can be used as a replacement for a man(1) program. Moreover, compressed files that can be handled by gzip(1) or bzip2(1) are decompressed on-the-fly.
The normal usage is quite simple by supplying a file name or name of a man~page without further options. But the option handling has many possibilities for creating special behaviors. This can be done either in configuration files, with the shell environment variable or on the command line.
The output can be generated and viewed in several different ways available for groff. This includes the groff native CR]X~Window] viewer gxditview(1) , each Postcript, pdf, or dvi display program, a web browser by generating html in www~mode, or several text~modes in text terminals.
Most of the options that must be named when running groff directly are determined automatically for groffer, due to the internal usage of the grog(1) program. But all parts can also be controlled manually by arguments.
Several file names can be specified on the command line arguments. They are transformed into a single document in the normal way of groff.
Option handling is done in CR]GNU] style. Options and file names can be mixed freely. The option ‘--’ closes the option handling, all following arguments are treated as file names. Long options can be abbreviated in several ways.
All further groff short options are accepted.
Further long options of CR]GNU] man are accepted as well.
The filespec parameters are all arguments that are neither an option nor an option argument. They usually mean a file name or a man page searching scheme.
In the following, the term section_extension is used. It means a word that consists of a man section that is optionally followed by an extension. The name of a man section is a single character from [1-9on], the extension is some word. The extension is mostly lacking.
No filespec parameters means standard input.
All short options of groffer are compatible with the short options of groff(1) . All long options of groffer are compatible with the long options of man(1) .
Arguments for long option names can be abbreviated in several ways. First, the argument is checked whether it can be prolonged as is. Furthermore, each minus sign - is considered as a starting point for a new abbreviation. This leads to a set of multiple abbreviations for a single argument. For example, --de-n-f can be used as an abbreviation for --debug-not-func, but --de-n works as well. If the abbreviation of the argument leads to several resulting options an error is raised.
These abbreviations are only allowed in the environment variable but not in the configuration files. In configuration, all long options must be exact.
In CR]X~Window], many programs create their own window when called. groffer can run these viewers as an independent program in the background. As this does not work in text mode on a terminal (tty) there must be a way to know which viewers are CR]X~Window] graphical programs. The groffer script has a small set of information on some viewer names. If a viewer argument of the command-line chooses an element that is kept as CR]X~Window] program in this list it is treated as a viewer that can run in the background. All other, unknown viewer calls are not run in the background.
For each mode, you are free to choose whatever viewer you want. That need not be some graphical viewer suitable for this mode. There is a chance to view the output source; for example, the combination of the options --mode=ps and --ps-viewer=less shows the content of the Postscript output, the source code, with the pager less.
The following modes do not use the groffer viewing features. They are only interesting for advanced applications.
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.
Because of the special outputting behavior of the groff option -Z groffer was designed to be switched into groff~mode; the groffer viewing features are disabled there. The other groff options do not switch the mode, but allow to customize the formatting process.
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.
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.
In the following, the man options that have a special meaning for groffer are documented.
If your system has CR]GNU] man installed the full set of long and short options of the CR]GNU] man program can be passed via the environment variable see man(1) .
Unfortunately these options use the old style of a single minus for long options. For groffer that was changed to the standard with using a double minus for long options, for example, groffer uses the option --font for the CR]X~Window] option -font.
See X(7) and the documentation on the CR]X~Window~Toolkit] options for more details on these options and their arguments.
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 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.
The strange CR]POSIX] behavior to regard all arguments behind the first non-option argument as filespec arguments is ignored. The CR]GNU] behavior to recognize options even when mixed with filespec arguments is used throughout. But, as usual, the double minus argument -- ends the option handling and interprets all following arguments as filespec arguments; so the CR]POSIX] behavior can be easily adopted.
The options --apropos* have a special handling of filespec arguments. Each argument is taken as a search scheme of its own. Also a regexp (regular expression) can be used in the filespec. For example, groffer --apropos ’^gro.f$’ searches groff in the man~page name, while groffer --apropos groff searches groff somewhere in the name or description of the man~pages.
All other parts of groffer, such as the normal display or the output with --whatis have a different scheme for filespecs. No regular expressions are used for the arguments. The filespec arguments are handled by the following scheme.
It is necessary to know that on each system the man~pages are sorted according to their content into several sections. The classical man sections have a single-character name, either a digit from 1 to 9 or one of the characters n or o.
This can optionally be followed by a string, the so-called extension. The extension allows to store several man~pages with the same name in the same section. But the extension is only rarely used, usually it is omitted. Then the extensions are searched automatically by alphabet.
In the following, we use the name section_extension for a word that consists of a single character section name or a section character that is followed by an extension. Each filespec parameter can have one of the following forms in decreasing sequence. No filespec parameters means that groffer waits for standard input. The minus option - always stands for standard input; it can occur several times. If you want to look up a man~page called - use the argument man:-. Next a filespec is tested whether it is the path name of an existing file. Otherwise it is assumed to be a searching pattern for a man~page. man:name(section_extension), man:name.section_extension, name(section_extension), or name.section_extension search the man~page name in man~section and possibly extension of section_extension. Now man:name searches for a man~page in the lowest man~section that has a document called name. section_extension~name is a pattern of 2 arguments that originates from a strange argument parsing of the man program. Again, this searches the man page name with section_extension, a combination of a section character optionally followed by an extension. We are left with the argument name which is not an existing file. So this searches for the man~page called name in the lowest man~section that has a document for this name.
Several file name arguments can be supplied. They are mixed by groff into a single document. Note that the set of option arguments must fit to all of these file arguments. So they should have at least the same style of the groff language.
Several different modes are offered, graphical modes for CR]X~Window], text~modes, and some direct groff~modes for debugging and development.
By default, groffer first tries whether x~mode is possible, then ps~mode, and finally tty~mode. This mode testing sequence for auto~mode can be changed by specifying a comma separated list of modes with the option --default-modes.
The searching for man~pages and the decompression of the input are active in every mode.
Known viewers for the graphical display modes and their standard CR]X~Window] viewer programs are in a PDF viewer (pdf~mode) in a web browser (html or www~mode) in a Postscript viewer (ps~mode) CR]X~Window] roff viewers such as gxditview(1) or xditview(1) (in x~mode) in a dvi viewer program (dvi~mode)
The pdf~mode has a major advantage [em] it is the only graphical display mode that allows to search for text within the viewer; this can be a really important feature. Unfortunately, it takes some time to transform the input into the PDF format, so it was not chosen as the major mode.
These graphical viewers can be customized by options of the CR]X~Window~Toolkit]. But the groffer options use a leading double minus instead of the single minus used by the CR]X~Window~Toolkit].
If the variable is not set or empty, groffer assumes that it should use tty~mode.
In the actual implementation, the groff output device latin1 is chosen for text~modes. This can be changed by specifying option -T or --device.
The pager to be used can be specified by one of the options --pager and --tty-viewer, or by the environment variable If all of this is not used the less(1) program with the option -r for correctly displaying control sequences is used as the default pager.
The source~mode with option --source just displays the decompressed input.
Otion --to-stdout does not display in a graphical mode. It just generates the file for the chosen mode and then prints its content to standard output.
The groff~mode passes the input to groff using only some suitable options provided to groffer. This enables the user to save the generated output into a file or pipe it into another program.
In groff~mode, the option -Z disables post-processing, thus producing the groff intermediate output. In this mode, the input is formatted, but not postprocessed; see groff_out(5) for details.
All groff short options are supported by groffer.
If neither a local file nor a man~page was retrieved for some file parameter a warning is issued on standard error, but processing is continued.
The only man action that is omitted in groffer are the preformatted man~pages, also called cat~pages. With the excellent performance of the actual computers, the preformatted man~pages aren’t necessary any longer. Additionally, groffer is a roff program; it wants to read roff source files and format them itself.
The algorithm for retrieving the file for a man~page needs first a set of directories. This set starts with the so-called man~path that is modified later on by adding names of operating system and language. This arising set is used for adding the section directories which contain the man~page files.
The man~path is a list of directories that are separated by colon. It is generated by the following methods. The environment variable can be set. It can be read from the arguments of the environment variable The man~path can be manually specified by using the option --manpath. An empty argument disables the man~page searching. When no man~path was set the manpath(1) program is tried to determine one. If this does not work a reasonable default path from is determined.
We now have a starting set of directories. The first way to change this set is by adding names of operating systems. This assumes that man~pages for several operating systems are installed. This is not always true. The names of such operating systems can be provided by 3 methods. The environment variable has the lowest precedence. This can be overridden by an option in This again is overridden by the command line option --systems.
Several names of operating systems can be given by appending their names, separated by a comma.
The man~path is changed by appending each system name as subdirectory at the end of each directory of the set. No directory of the man~path set is kept. But if no system name is specified the man~path is left unchanged.
After this, the actual set of directories can be changed by language information. This assumes that there exist man~pages in different languages. The wanted language can be chosen by several methods. Environment variable This is overridden by This is overridden by This can be overridden by providing an option in All these environment variables are overridden by the command line option --locale.
The default language can be specified by specifying one of the pseudo-language parameters CR]C or CR]POSIX. This is like deleting a formerly given language information. The man~pages in the default language are usually in English.
Of course, the language name is determined by man. In CR]GNU man, it is specified in the CR]POSIX~1003.1 based format:
I]<language>][CB]_]I]<territory>][CB].
but the two-letter code in <language> is sufficient for most purposes. If for a complicated language formulation no man~pages are found groffer searches the country part consisting of these first two characters as well.
The actual directory set is copied thrice. The language name is appended as subdirectory to each directory in the first copy of the actual directory set (this is only done when a language information is given). Then the 2-letter abbreviation of the language name is appended as subdirectories to the second copy of the directory set (this is only done when the given language name has more than 2 letters). The third copy of the directory set is kept unchanged (if no language information is given this is the kept directory set). These maximally 3 copies are appended to get the new directory set.
We now have a complete set of directories to work with. In each of these directories, the man files are separated in sections. The name of a section is represented by a single character, a digit between 1 and 9, or the character o or n, in this order.
For each available section, a subdirectory exists containing all man files for this section, where <section> is a single character as described before. Each man file in a section directory has the form CB]man<section>CB]/<name>CB].<section>[<extension>][CB].<compression>] , where <extension> and <compression> are optional. <name> is the name of the man~page that is also specified as filespec argument on the command line.
The extension is an addition to the section. This postfix acts like a subsection. An extension occurs only in the file name, not in name of the section subdirectory. It can be specified on the command line.
On the other hand, the compression is just an information on how the file is compressed. This is not important for the user, such that it cannot be specified on the command line.
There are 4 methods to specify a section on the command line: Environment variable Command line option --sections Appendix to the name argument in the form <name>.<section> Preargument before the name argument in the form <section> <name>
It is also possible to specify several sections by appending the single characters separated by colons. One can imagine that this means to restrict the man~page search to only some sections. The multiple sections are only possible for and --sections.
If no section is specified all sections are searched one after the other in the given order, starting with section~1, until a suitable file is found.
There are 4 methods to specify an extension on the command line. But it is not necessary to provide the whole extension name, some abbreviation is good enough in most cases. Environment variable Command line option --extension Appendix to the <name>.<section> argument in the form <name>.<section><extension> Preargument before the name argument in the form <section><extension> <name>
For further details on man~page searching, see man(1) .
sh# groffer~--locale=de~--sections=5:7~--systems=linux,aix~man sh# LANG=de~MANSECT=5:7~SYSTEM=linux,aix~groffer~man
sh# DISPLAY=:0.1~groffer~what.ever &
sh# PAGER=cat~groffer~anything
The environment variable is ignored by groffer because the necessary preprocessors are determined automatically.
Both files are handled for the configuration, but the configuration file in comes first; it is overwritten by the configuration file in the home directory; both configuration files are overwritten by the environment variable everything is overwritten by the command line arguments.
The configuration files contain options that should be called as default for every groffer run. These options are written in lines such that each contains either a long option, a short option, or a short option cluster; each with or without an argument. So each line with configuration information starts with a minus character ‘-’; a line with a long option starts with two minus characters ‘--’, a line with a short option or short option cluster starts with a single minus ‘-’.
The option names in the configuration files may not be abbreviated, they must be exact.
The argument for a long option can be separated from the option name either by an equal sign ‘=’ or by whitespace, i.e. one or several space or tab characters. An argument for a short option or short option cluster can be directly appended to the option name or separated by whitespace. The end of an argument is the end of the line. It is not allowed to use a shell environment variable in an option name or argument.
It is not necessary to use quotes in an option or argument, except for empty arguments. An empty argument can be provided by appending a pair of quotes to the separating equal sign or whitespace; with a short option, the separator can be omitted as well. For a long option with a separating equal sign ‘=’, the pair of quotes can be omitted, thus ending the line with the separating equal sign. All other quote characters are cancelled internally.
In the configuration files, arbitrary whitespace is allowed at the beginning of each line, it is just ignored. Each whitespace within a line is replaced by a single space character ‘ ’ internally.
All lines of the configuration lines that do not start with a minus character are ignored, such that comments starting with ‘#’ are possible. So there are no shell commands in the configuration files.
As an example, consider the following configuration file that can be used either in or
# groffer configuration file # # groffer options that are used in each call of groffer --foreground=DarkBlue --resolution=100 --x-viewer=gxditview -geometry 900x1200 --pdf-viewer xpdf -Z 150
The lines starting with # are just ignored, so they act as command lines. This configuration sets four groffer options (the lines starting with ‘-’). This has the following effects: Use a text color of DarkBlue in all viewers that support this, such as gxditview. Use a resolution of 100dpi in all viewers that support this, such as gxditview. By this, the default device in x mode is set to X100. Force gxditview(1) as the x-mode viewer using the geometry option for setting the width to 900px and the height to 1200px. This geometry is suitable for a resolution of 100dpi. Use xpdf(1) as the pdf-mode viewer with the argument -Z 150.
sh#~groffer~/usr/local/share/doc/groff/meintro.ms.gz
Decompress, format and display the compressed file in the directory using the standard viewer gxditview as graphical viewer when in CR]X~Window, or the less(1) pager program when not in CR]X~Window.
sh#~groffer~groff
If the file 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 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 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~[cq]troff(1) [cq]~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 [cq]troff(1) [cq] are necessary because the parentheses are special shell characters; escaping them with a backslash character [rs]( and [rs]) would be possible, too. The formatted files are concatenated and displayed in one piece.
sh#~LANG=de~groffer~--man~--www~--www-viewer=galeon~ls
Retrieve the German man~page (language de) for the ls program, decompress it, format it to html 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 exists in the actual directory.
sh#~groffer~--source~’man:roff(7) ’
Get the man~page called roff in man~section 7, decompress it, and print its unformatted content, 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 is sent to standard input, this is decompressed, and then this is transported to the groff intermediate output mode without post-processing (groff option -Z), using macro package foo (groff option -m).
sh#~echo~’[rs]f[CB]WOW!’~| > groffer --x --bg red --fg yellow --geometry 200x100 -
Display the word CB]WOW! in a small window in constant-width bold font, using color yellow on red background.
groffer provides its own parser for command line arguments that is compatible to both CR]POSIX getopts(1) and CR]GNU getopt(1) . It can handle option arguments and file names containing white space and a large set of special characters. The following standard types of options are supported. The option consisting of a single minus - refers to standard input. A single minus followed by characters refers to a single character option or a combination thereof; for example, the groffer short option combination -Qmfoo is equivalent to -Q~-m~foo. Long options are options with names longer than one character; they are always preceded by a double minus. An option argument can either go to the next command line argument or be appended with an equal sign to the argument; for example, --long=arg is equivalent to --long~arg. An argument of -- ends option parsing; all further command line arguments are interpreted as filespec parameters, i.e. file names or constructs for searching man~pages). All command line arguments that are neither options nor option arguments are interpreted as filespec parameters and stored until option parsing has finished. For example, the command line
sh#~groffer file1 -a -o arg file2
is equivalent to
sh#~groffer -a -o arg -- file1 file2
The free mixing of options and filespec parameters follows the GNU principle. That does not fulfill the strange option behavior of CR]POSIX that ends option processing as soon as the first non-option argument has been reached. The end of option processing can be forced by the option ‘--’ anyway.
You can also use the groff mailing list but you must first subscribe to this list. You can do that by visiting the groff mailing list web page
See groff(1) for information on availability.
Details on the options and environment variables available in groff; all of them can be used with groffer.
Viewers for groffer’s x~mode.
kpdf(1) , kghostview(1) , evince(1) , ggv(1) , gv(1) , ghostview(1) , gs(1)
Viewers for groffer’s ps~mode.
kpdf(1) , acroread(1) , evince(1) , xpdf(1) , gpdf(1) , kghostview(1) , ggv(1)
Viewers for groffer’s pdf~mode.
Viewers for groffer’s dvi~mode.
konqueror(1) , epiphany(1) , firefox(1) , mozilla(1) , netscape(1) , lynx(1)
Web-browsers for groffer’s html or www~mode.
The decompression programs supported by groffer.
This file is part of groffer, which is part of groff, a free software project. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
You should have received a copy of the CR]GNU General Public License] along with groff, see the files CB]COPYING] and CB]LICENSE] in the top directory of the groff source package. Or read the man~page gpl(1) . You can also visit <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/ >.