Provided by: groff_1.22.3-10_amd64 bug

NAME

       groff_filenames — filename extensions for roff and groff

DESCRIPTION

       Since  the  evolution  of roff in the 1970s, a whole bunch of filename extensions for roff
       files were used.

       The roff extensions refer to preprocessors or macro packages.  These extensions are  fixed
       in all Unix-like operating systems.

       Later  on,  groff  added  some  more extensions.  We will now write a man-page about these
       filename extensions.

COMPRESSION OF ROFF FILES

       Each roff file can be optionally compressed.  That means that the total filename ends with
       a     compressor     name.      So     the    whole    filename    has    the    structure
       <name>.<extension>[.<compression>].

       Mostly known are the compressor extensions .Z, .gz, and .bzip2.  Relatively new is .xz.

       From  now  on,  we  will  ignore  the  compressions  and  only   comment   the   structure
       <name>.<extension>.

MAN-PAGES

       The  Unix  manual pages are shortly named man-pages.  The man-page style is the best known
       part of the roff language.

       The extensions for man should be better documented.  So this is documented here.

       Files written in the man language use the following extension: *.<section>[<group>].

   Man-page Sections
       The traditional man-page <section> is a digit from 1 to 8.

       <name>.1
       <name>.2
       <name>.3
       <name>.4
       <name>.5
       <name>.6
       <name>.7
       <name>.8
              Classic man-page sections.

       Linux added the section number 9 for kernel man-pages.

       <name>.9
              Linux kernel man-pages

       In older commercial Unix systems, the 3 characters l, n, and o were also used  as  section
       names.  This is today deprecated, but there are still documents in this format.

       <name>.l
       <name>.n
       <name>.o
              Deprecated old man-page sections.

   Man-page Group Extensions
       The <group> extension in .<section>[<group>] is optional, but it can be any string of word
       characters.  Usually programmers use a group name that is already  used,  e.g.   x  for  X
       Window System documents or tk to refer to the tk programming language.

       Examples:

       groff.1
              is the man-page for groff in section 1 without a group

       xargs.1posix.gz
              is  the man-page for the program xargs in section 1 and group posix; moreover it is
              compressed with gz (gzip).

       config.5ssl
              OpenSSL CONF library configuration files from section 5 with group ssl.

       dpkg-reconfigure.8cdebconf
              man-page for the program dpkg-reconfigure in section 8 and group cdebconf.

   Source of Man-pages
       There are 2 roff languages for writing man-pages: man and mdoc.

       The names of these 2 styles are taken as extensions for the source code files of man-pages
       in the groff package.

       <name>.man
              traditional Unix-like man-page format within groff source files.

       <name>.n
              A temporary man-page file produced from a name.man man-page by a run of make within
              the groff source package.

       <name>.mdoc
              Man-page format in BSD.

       <name>.1b
              Man-page format in heirloom roff .

       <name>.mandoc
              Files using this extension recognize both  man-page  formats  in  groff  and  other
              processors.

TRADITIONAL TROFF EXTENSIONS

   Files Using Macro Packages
       The classical roff languages were interpreted by the traditional troff and nroff programs.

       There  were  several  roff  languages, each represented by a macro-package.  Each of these
       provided a suitable file name extension:

       <name>.me
              roff file using the me macro package.

       <name>.mm
              roff file using the mm macro package

       <name>.ms
              roff file using the ms macro package

       All of these classical roff languages and their extensions are still very active in groff.

   Source Code for Macro Packages (TMAC Files)
       In traditional roff the source code for the macro  packages  was  stored  in  TMAC  files.
       Their file names have the form:

       tmac.<package>,
              <package>  is  the name of the macro package without the leading m character, which
              is reintegrated by the option -m.

       For example, tmac.an is the source for the man macro package.

       In the groff source, more suitable file names were integrated, see later on.

   Preprocessors
       Moreover, the following preprocessors were used as filename extension:

       <name>.chem
              for the integration of chemical formulas

       <name>.eqn
              for the mathematical use of equations

       <name>.pic
              graphical tool

       <name>.tbl
              for tables with tbl

       <name>.ref
              for files using the prefer preprocessor

   Classical Roff Files
       <name>.t
       <name>.tr
              for files using the roff language of any kind

NEW GROFF EXTENSIONS

       GNU roff groff is the actual roff standard, both for classical roff  and  new  extensions.
       So  even the used new extensions in the source code should be regarded as actual standard.
       The following extensions are used instead of classical .t or .tr:

       <name>.groff
       <name>.roff
              general ending for files using the groff language

   Source Code for Macro Packages (TMAC Files)
       As the classical form tmac.<package_without_m>, of the TMAC file names is  quite  strange,
       groff added the following structures:

       <package_without_m>.tmac
       m<package>.tmac
       groff_m<package>.tmac

   Files Using new Macro Packages
       Groff uses the following new macro packages:

       <name>.mmse
              file with swedish mm macros for groff

       <name>.mom
              files written in the groff macro package mom

       <name>.www
              files written in HTML-like groff macros.

   Preprocessors and Postprocessors
       <name>.hdtbl
              a new tbl format.  See groff_hdtbl(7).

       <name>.grap
              files written for the graphical grap processor.

       <name>.grn
              for including gremlin(1), pictures, see grn(1).

       <name>.pdfroff
              transform this file with pdfroff of the groff system

SEE ALSO

       History and future
              roff(7), man-pages(7), groff_diff(7), groff(7)

       Compression
              uncompress(1posix), gzip2(1), bzip2(1), xz(1)

       A man-page of the naming form name(n) can be read in text mode by
              man n name
       or in graphical mode (PDF) by
              groffer n name

       Gunnar  Ritter's  Heirloom  roff  project ⟨https://github.com/n-t-roff/heirloom-doctools⟩.
       You can get this package with the shell command:
              $ git clone https://github.com/n-t-roff/heirloom-doctools

COPYING

       Copyright © 2013-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

       This file 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 version 2 (GPL2) as published
       by the Free Software Foundation (FSF).

       The license text can be found in the internet at ⟨http://www.gnu.org/licenses⟩.

AUTHORS

       This file was written by Bernd Warken ⟨groff-bernd.warken-72@web.de⟩.