Provided by: groff_1.22.4-8build1_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  Provides  macros  for  addition,  multiplication,  and  division of 62-bit integers (allowing safe
              multiplication of 31-bit 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.

       hdtbl  The  Heidelberger  table  macros, contributed by Joachim Walsdorff, allow the generation of tables
              through a syntax similar to the HTML table model.  Note that hdtbl  is  a  macro  package,  not  a
              preprocessor  like  tbl(1).   hdtbl  works  only  with  the  -Tps  and  -Tpdf output devices.  See
              groff_hdtbl(7).

       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

       pdfpic A single macro is provided in this file, PSPIC, to include a PDF  graphic  in  a  document,  i.e.,
              under  the  output device -Tpdf.  For all other devices, pspic is used.  So pdfpic is an extension
              of pspic.  By that you can now even replace all PSPIC by PDFPIC, nothing gets lost by  that.   The
              options of PDFPIC are identical to the PSDIF options.

       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 one 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/1.22.4/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/1.22.4/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 a directory in the
       tmac path; see section “Files” below.  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 package files 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/1.22.4/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.

AUTHORS

       This document was written by Bernd Warken ⟨groff-bernd.warken-72@web.de⟩ and Werner Lemberg ⟨wl@gnu.org⟩.

SEE ALSO

       Groff:  The  GNU  Implementation  of  troff,  by Trent A. Fisher and Werner Lemberg, is the primary groff
       manual.  You can browse it interactively with “info groff”.

       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/⟩.