Provided by: groff_1.22.3-10_amd64 bug

NAME

       groff_tmac - macro files in the roff typesetting system

DESCRIPTION

       The  roff(7)  type-setting  system  provides  a set of macro packages suitable for special
       kinds of documents.  Each macro package stores its macros and definitions in a file called
       the package's tmac file.  The name is deduced from ‘TroffMACros’.

       The  tmac  files  are  normal roff source documents, except that they usually contain only
       definitions and setup commands, but no text.  All tmac files are kept in  a  single  or  a
       small number of directories, the tmac directories.

GROFF MACRO PACKAGES

       groff  provides  all classical macro packages, some more full packages, and some secondary
       packages for special purposes.  Note that it is not possible to use multiple primary macro
       packages at the same time; saying e.g.

              sh# groff -m man -m ms foo

       or

              sh# groff -m man foo -m ms bar

       fails.   Exception to this is the use of man pages written with either the mdoc or the man
       macro package.  See below the description of the andoc.tmac file.

   Man Pages
       man    This is the classical macro package for UNIX manual pages (man pages); it is  quite
              handy and easy to use; see groff_man(7).

       doc
       mdoc   An  alternative macro package for man pages mainly used in BSD systems; it provides
              many new features, but it is not the standard for man pages; see groff_mdoc(7).

       andoc
       mandoc Use this file in case you don't know whether the man macros  or  the  mdoc  package
              should be used.  Multiple man pages (in either format) can be handled.

   Full Packages
       The packages in this section provide a complete set of macros for writing documents of any
       kind, up to whole books.  They are similar in functionality; it is a matter of taste which
       one to use.

       me     The classical me macro package; see groff_me(7).

       mm     The semi-classical mm macro package; see groff_mm(7).

       mom    The  new mom macro package, only available in groff.  As this is not based on other
              packages, it can be freely designed.  So it is expected to  become  quite  a  nice,
              modern macro package.  See groff_mom(7).

       ms     The classical ms macro package; see groff_ms(7).

   Language-specific Packages
       cs     This  file  adds  support for Czech localization, including the main macro packages
              (me, mom, mm, and ms).

              Note that cs.tmac sets the input encoding to latin-2.

       de
       den    German localization support, including the main macro packages (me,  mom,  mm,  and
              ms).

              de.tmac selects hyphenation patterns for traditional orthography, and den.tmac does
              the same for the new orthography (‘Rechtschreibreform’).  It should be used as  the
              last macro package on the command line.

       fr     This  file  adds support for French localization, including the main macro packages
              (me, mom, mm, and ms).  Example:

                     sh# groff -ms -mfr foo.ms > foo.ps

              Note that fr.tmac sets the input encoding to latin-9 to get proper support  of  the
              ‘oe’ ligature.

       sv     Swedish  localization  support, including the me, mom, and ms macro packages.  Note
              that Swedish for the mm macros is handled separately; see  groff_mmse(7)  (only  in
              Swedish locales).  It should be used as the last macro package on the command line.

   Input Encodings
       latin1
       latin2
       latin5
       latin9 Various  input  encodings  supported  directly  by  groff.  Normally, this macro is
              loaded at the very beginning of a document or specified as the first macro argument
              on  the  command  line.  roff loads latin1 by default at start-up.  Note that these
              macro packages don't work on EBCDIC hosts.

       cp1047 Encoding support for EBCDIC.  On those platforms  it  is  loaded  automatically  at
              start-up.   Due  to  different  character  ranges  used  in roff it doesn't work on
              architectures which are based on ASCII.

       Note that it can happen that some input  encoding  characters  are  not  available  for  a
       particular output device.  For example, saying

       groff -Tlatin1 -mlatin9 ...

       fails  if  you  use  the Euro character in the input.  Usually, this limitation is present
       only for devices which have a limited set of output glyphs (-Tascii, -Tlatin1); for  other
       devices  it  is  usually  sufficient  to  install proper fonts which contain the necessary
       glyphs.

   Special Packages
       The macro packages in this section are not intended for stand-alone usage, but can be used
       to add special functionality to any other macro package or to plain groff.

       62bit  Provide  some  macros  for addition, multiplication, and division of 60bit integers
              (allowing safe multiplication of 31bit integers, for example).

       ec     Switch to the EC and TC font families.  To be used with grodvi(1) – this  man  page
              also gives more details of how to use it.

       papersize
              This  macro  file  is  already loaded at start-up by troff so it isn't necessary to
              call it explicitly.  It provides an interface to set the paper size on the  command
              line  with  the  option -dpaper=size.  Possible values for size are the same as the
              predefined papersize values in the DESC file (only lowercase; see groff_font(5) for
              more)  except  a7d7.  An appended l (ell) character denotes landscape orientation.
              Examples: a4, c3l, letterl.

              Most output drivers need additional command line switches -p and -l to override the
              default  paper length and orientation as set in the driver specific DESC file.  For
              example, use the following for PS output on A4 paper in landscape orientation:

              sh# groff -Tps -dpaper=a4l -P-pa4 -P-l -ms foo.ms > foo.ps

       pic    This file provides proper definitions for the macros PS  and  PE,  needed  for  the
              pic(1)  preprocessor.  They center each picture.  Use it only if your macro package
              doesn't provide proper definitions for those two macros  (actually,  most  of  them
              already do).

       pspic  A  single macro is provided in this file, PSPIC, to include a PostScript graphic in
              a document.  The following output devices support inclusion  of  PS  images:  -Tps,
              -Tdvi,  -Thtml,  and  -Txhtml;  for  all other devices the image is replaced with a
              hollow rectangle of the same size.  This macro file is already loaded  at  start-up
              by troff so it isn't necessary to call it explicitly.

              Syntax:

                     .PSPIC [-L|-R|-C|-I n] file [width [height]]

              file  is  the  name of the PostScript file; width and height give the desired width
              and height of the image.  If neither a width nor a height  argument  is  specified,
              the image's natural width (as given in the file's bounding box) or the current line
              length is used as the width, whatever is smaller.  The width and  height  arguments
              may  have  scaling  indicators  attached; the default scaling indicator is i.  This
              macro scales the graphic uniformly in the x and y directions so that it is no  more
              than width wide and height high.  Option -C centers the graphic horizontally, which
              is the default.  The -L and -R options cause the graphic  to  be  left-aligned  and
              right-aligned,  respectively.  The -I option causes the graphic to be indented by n
              (default scaling indicator is m).

              For use of .PSPIC within a diversion it  is  recommended  to  extend  it  with  the
              following  code,  assuring that the diversion's width completely covers the image's
              width.

                     .am PSPIC
                     .  vpt 0
                     \h'(\\n[ps-offset]u + \\n[ps-deswid]u)'
                     .  sp -1
                     .  vpt 1
                     ..

       ptx    A single macro is provided in this file, xx, for formatting permuted index  entries
              as  produced  by  the GNU ptx(1) program.  In case you need a different formatting,
              copy the macro into your document and adapt it to your needs.

       trace  Use this  for  tracing  macro  calls.   It  is  only  useful  for  debugging.   See
              groff_trace(7).

       tty-char
              Overrides the definition of standard troff characters and some groff characters for
              TTY devices.  The optical appearance is intentionally inferior compared to that  of
              normal TTY formatting to allow processing with critical equipment.

       www    Additions  of  elements  known from the HTML format, as used in the internet (World
              Wide Web) pages; this includes URL links and mail addresses; see groff_www(7).

NAMING

       Classical roff systems were designed before the conventions of the modern C getopt(3) call
       evolved, and used a naming scheme for macro packages that looks odd to modern eyes.  Macro
       packages were always included with the option -m; when this option was  directly  followed
       by its argument without an intervening space, this looked like a long option preceded by a
       single minus — a sensation in the computer stone age.  To make this invocation form  work,
       classical  troff  macro  packages  used  names that started with the letter ‘m’, which was
       omitted in the naming of the macro file.

       For example, the macro package for the man pages was called  man,  while  its  macro  file
       tmac.an.  So it could be activated by the argument an to option -m, or -man for short.

       For similar reasons, macro packages that did not start with an ‘m’ had a leading ‘m’ added
       in the documentation and in speech; for example, the package corresponding to tmac.doc was
       called  mdoc  in the documentation, although a more suitable name would be doc.  For, when
       omitting the space between the option and  its  argument,  the  command  line  option  for
       activating this package reads -mdoc.

       To  cope  with  all  situations,  actual  versions of groff(1) are smart about both naming
       schemes by providing two macro files for the inflicted macro packages; one with a  leading
       ‘m’  the  other one without it.  So in groff, the man macro package may be specified as on
       of the following four methods:

              sh# groff -m man
              sh# groff -man
              sh# groff -mman
              sh# groff -m an

       Recent packages that do  not  start  with  ‘m’  do  not  use  an  additional  ‘m’  in  the
       documentation.  For example, the www macro package may be specified only as one of the two
       methods:

              sh# groff -m www
              sh# groff -mwww

       Obviously, variants like -mmwww would not make much sense.

       A second strange feature of classical troff was to name macro files in the form tmac.name.
       In  modern  operating systems, the type of a file is specified as a postfix, the file name
       extension.  Again, groff copes with this situation by  searching  both  anything.tmac  and
       tmac.anything if only anything is specified.

       The easiest way to find out which macro packages are available on a system is to check the
       man page groff(1), or the contents of the tmac directories.

       In groff, most macro packages are described in man  pages  called  groff_name(7),  with  a
       leading ‘m’ for the classical packages.

INCLUSION

       There  are  several  ways  to  use a macro package in a document.  The classical way is to
       specify the troff/groff option -m name at run-time; this makes the contents of  the  macro
       package name available.  In groff, the file name.tmac is searched within the tmac path; if
       not found, tmac.name is searched for instead.

       Alternatively, it is also possible to include a macro  file  by  adding  the  request  .so
       filename  into  the document; the argument must be the full file name of an existing file,
       possibly with the directory where it is kept.  In groff, this was improved by the  similar
       request .mso package, which added searching in the tmac path, just like option -m does.

       Note  that  in order to resolve the .so and .mso requests, the roff preprocessor soelim(1)
       must be called if the files to be included need preprocessing.  This can  be  done  either
       directly  by  a  pipeline  on the command line or by using the troff/groff option -s.  man
       calls soelim automatically.

       For example, suppose a macro file is stored as

              /usr/share/groff/1.22.3/tmac/macros.tmac

       and is used in some document called docu.roff.

       At run-time, the formatter call for this is

              sh# groff -m macros docu.roff

       To include the macro file directly in the document either

              .mso macros.tmac

       is used or

              .so /usr/share/groff/1.22.3/tmac/macros.tmac

       In both cases, the formatter should be called with option -s to invoke soelim.

              sh# groff -s docu.roff

       If you want to write your own groff macro file, call it whatever.tmac and put it  in  some
       directory  of  the  tmac  path, see section FILES.  Then documents can include it with the
       .mso request or the option -m.

WRITING MACROS

       A roff(7) document is a text file that is enriched by  predefined  formatting  constructs,
       such  as  requests,  escape sequences, strings, numeric registers, and macros from a macro
       package.  These elements are described in roff(7).

       To give a document a personal style, it is most useful to extend the existing elements  by
       defining some macros for repeating tasks; the best place for this is near the beginning of
       the document or in a separate file.

       Macros without arguments are just like strings.  But the full power of macros reveals when
       arguments  are  passed  with a macro call.  Within the macro definition, the arguments are
       available as the escape sequences \$1, ..., \$9, \$[...], \$*, and  \$@,  the  name  under
       which  the  macro was called is in \$0, and the number of arguments is in register \n[.$];
       see groff(7).

   Copy-in Mode
       The phase when groff reads a macro is called copy-in mode or copy mode in roff-talk.  This
       is  comparable to the C preprocessing phase during the development of a program written in
       the C language.

       In this phase, groff interprets all backslashes; that means that all escape  sequences  in
       the  macro  body  are  interpreted and replaced by their value.  For constant expressions,
       this is wanted, but strings and registers that might change between  calls  of  the  macro
       must  be  protected  from  being  evaluated.   This  is  most  easily done by doubling the
       backslash that introduces the escape sequence.  This doubling is most  important  for  the
       positional  parameters.   For  example,  to  print  information on the arguments that were
       passed to the macro to the terminal, define a macro named ‘.print_args’, say.

              .ds midpart was called with
              .de print_args
              .  tm \f[I]\\$0\f[] \*[midpart] \\n[.$] arguments:
              .  tm \\$*
              ..

       When calling this macro by

              .print_args arg1 arg2

       the following text is printed to the terminal:

              print_args was called with the following 2 arguments:
              arg1 arg2

       Let's analyze each backslash in the macro definition.  As the  positional  parameters  and
       the number of arguments change with each call of the macro their leading backslash must be
       doubled, which results in \\$* and \\[.$].  The same applies to the macro name because  it
       could be called with an alias name, so \\$0.

       On  the  other  hand, midpart is a constant string, it does not change, so no doubling for
       \*[midpart].  The \f escape sequences are predefined groff elements for setting  the  font
       within  the text.  Of course, this behavior does not change, so no doubling with \f[I] and
       \f[].

   Draft Mode
       Writing groff macros is easy when the escaping  mechanism  is  temporarily  disabled.   In
       groff,  this  is  done  by  enclosing  the  macro definition(s) into a pair of .eo and .ec
       requests.  Then the body in the macro definition  is  just  like  a  normal  part  of  the
       document  —  text  enhanced  by  calls  of requests, macros, strings, registers, etc.  For
       example, the code above can be written in a simpler way by

              .eo
              .ds midpart was called with
              .de print_args
              .  tm \f[I]\$0\f[] \*[midpart] \n[.$] arguments:
              .  tm \$*
              ..
              .ec

       Unfortunately, draft mode cannot be used universally.  Although  it  is  good  enough  for
       defining  normal  macros,  draft mode fails with advanced applications, such as indirectly
       defined strings, registers, etc.  An optimal way is to define and test all macros in draft
       mode  and  then do the backslash doubling as a final step; do not forget to remove the .eo
       request.

   Tips for Macro Definitions
       •      Start every line with a dot, for example, by using the groff request .nop for  text
              lines, or write your own macro that handles also text lines with a leading dot.

                     .de Text
                     .  if (\\n[.$] == 0) \
                     .    return
                     .  nop \)\\$*\)
                     ..

       •      Write  a  comment macro that works both for copy-in and draft mode; for as escaping
              is off in draft mode, trouble might occur  when  normal  comments  are  used.   For
              example,  the following macro just ignores its arguments, so it acts like a comment
              line:

                     .de c
                     ..
                     .c This is like a comment line.

       •      In long macro definitions, make ample use of comment lines  or  almost-empty  lines
              (this  is,  lines  which  have  a  leading  dot  and  nothing  else)  for  a better
              structuring.

       •      To increase readability, use groff's indentation facility for  requests  and  macro
              calls (arbitrary whitespace after the leading dot).

   Diversions
       Diversions  can  be  used  to  implement  quite advanced programming constructs.  They are
       comparable to pointers to large data structures in the C programming language,  but  their
       usage is quite different.

       In  their  simplest form, diversions are multi-line strings, but they get their power when
       diversions are used dynamically within macros.  The (formatted) information  stored  in  a
       diversion can be retrieved by calling the diversion just like a macro.

       Most  of  the  problems  arising with diversions can be avoided if you remain aware of the
       fact that diversions always store complete lines.  If diversions are used  when  the  line
       buffer  has  not been flushed, strange results are produced; not knowing this, many people
       get desperate about diversions.  To ensure that a diversion works, line breaks  should  be
       added  at  the  right places.  To be on the secure side, enclose everything that has to do
       with diversions into a pair of line breaks; for example, by explicitly using .br requests.
       This  rule  should be applied to diversion definition, both inside and outside, and to all
       calls of diversions.  This is a bit of overkill, but it works nicely.

       [If you really  need  diversions  which  should  ignore  the  current  partial  line,  use
       environments to save the current partial line and/or use the .box request.]

       The  most  powerful  feature  using  diversions  is  to  start  a diversion within a macro
       definition and end it within another macro.  Then everything between  each  call  of  this
       macro pair is stored within the diversion and can be manipulated from within the macros.

FILES

       All  macro  names  must  be named name.tmac to fully use the tmac mechanism.  tmac.name as
       with classical packages is possible as well, but deprecated.

       The macro files are kept in  the  tmac  directories;  a  colon  separated  list  of  these
       constitutes the tmac path.

       The search sequence for macro files is (in that order):

       •      the directories specified with troff/groff's -M command line option

       •      the directories given in the $GROFF_TMAC_PATH environment variable

       •      the  current  directory (only if in unsafe mode, which is enabled by the -U command
              line switch)

       •      the home directory

       •      a platform-specific directory, being

                     /usr/lib/groff/site-tmac

              in this installation

       •      a site-specific (platform-independent) directory, being

                     /usr/share/groff/site-tmac

              in this installation

       •      the main tmac directory, being

                     /usr/share/groff/1.22.3/tmac

              in this installation

ENVIRONMENT

       $GROFF_TMAC_PATH
              A colon separated list of additional tmac directories in which to search for  macro
              files.  See the previous section for a detailed description.

SEE ALSO

       A complete reference for all parts of the groff system is found in the groff info(1) file.

       groff(1)
              an overview of the groff system.

       groff_man(7),
       groff_mdoc(7),
       groff_me(7),
       groff_mm(7),
       groff_mom(7),
       groff_ms(7),
       groff_trace(7),
       groff_www(7).
              the groff tmac macro packages.

       groff(7)
              the groff language.

       The   Filesystem   Hierarchy   Standard   is  available  at  the  FHS  web  site  ⟨http://
       www.pathname.com/fhs/⟩.

COPYING

       Copyright © 2000-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

       This file is part of groff, the GNU roff type-setting system.

       Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the  terms  of
       the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free
       Software Foundation; with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.

       A copy of the Free Documentation License is included as a file  called  FDL  in  the  main
       directory  of  the  groff source package, it is also available on-line at the GNU copyleft
       site ⟨http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html⟩.

AUTHOR

       This     file     was     written     by      ⟨http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html⟩groff-
       bernd.warken-72@web.de  Bernd  Warken  ⟨http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html⟩  and  Werner
       Lemberg ⟨wl@gnu.org⟩.