trusty (1) grog.1.gz

NAME

       grog - guess options for groff command

SYNOPSIS

       grog [-C] [groff-option ...] [--] [filespec ...]
       grog -h | --help
       grog -v | --version

DESCRIPTION

       grog  reads the input (file names or standard input) and guesses which of the groff(1) options are needed
       to perform the input with the groff program.  The corresponding groff command is output.

OPTIONS

       The only grog options recognized are -C (which is also passed on) to enable compatibility  mode;  -v  and
       --version  print  information  on  the  version  number;  and -h and --help print usage information.  -v,
       --version, -h, and --help stop the program directly without printing a groff command to standard output.

       All other specified short options (words starting with one minus character -) are  interpreted  as  groff
       options  or  option  clusters  with  or  without argument.  No space is allowed between options and their
       argument.  Except from the -marg options, all options will be passed on, i.e. they are included unchanged
       in the command for the output without effecting the work of grog.

       A  filespec  argument  can  either  be  the name of an existing file or a single minus - to mean standard
       input.  If no filespec is specified standard input is read automatically.

DETAILS

       grog reads all filespec parameters as a whole.  It tries to guess which of the  following  groff  options
       are  required for running the input under groff: -e, -man, -me, -mm, -mom, -ms, -mdoc, -mdoc-old, -p, -R,
       -g, -G, -s, and -t.  The guessed groff command including those options and the found filespec  parameters
       is put on the standard output.

       It  is  possible  to specify arbitrary groff options on the command line.  These are passed on the output
       without change, except for the -marg options.

       The groff program has trouble when the wrong -marg option or several of these options are specified.   In
       these  cases,  grog  will print an error message and exit with an error code.  It is better to specify no
       -marg option.  Because such an option is only accepted and passed when grog does not find  any  of  these
       options or the same option is found.

       If  several  different  -marg  options  are found by grog an error message is produced and the program is
       terminated with an error code.  But the output is written with the wrong options nevertheless.

       Remember that it is not necessary to determine a macro package.  A roff file can also be written  in  the
       groff language without any macro package.  grog will produce an output without an -marg option.

       As  groff  also  works  with pure text files without any roff requests, grog cannot be used to identify a
       file to be a roff file.

       The groffer(1) program heavily depends on a working grog.

       The grog source contains two files written in  different  programming  languages:  grog.pl  is  the  Perl
       version,  while  grog.sh  is  a  shell  script using awk(1).  During the run of make(1), it is determined
       whether the system contains a suitable version of perl(1).  If so,  grog.pl  is  transformed  into  grog;
       otherwise grog.sh is used instead.

EXAMPLES

       •      Calling

                     grog meintro.me

              results in

                     groff -me meintro.me

              So grog recognized that the file meintro.me is written with the -me macro package.

       •      On the other hand,

                     grog pic.ms

              outputs

                     groff -pte -ms pic.ms

              Besides determining the macro package -ms, grog recognized that the file pic.ms additionally needs
              -pte, the combination of -p for pic, -t for tbl, and -e for eqn.

       •      If both files are combined by the command

                     grog meintro.me pic.ms

              an error message is sent to standard error because groff cannot  work  with  two  different  macro
              packages:

                     grog: error: there are several macro packages: -me -ms

              Additionally the corresponding output with the wrong options is printed to standard output:

                     groff -pte -me -ms meintro.me pic.ms

              But the program is terminated with an error code.

       •      The call of

                     grog -ksS -Tdvi grnexmpl.g

              contains  several  groff options that are just passed on the output without any interface to grog.
              These are the option cluster -ksS consisting of -k, -s, and -S; and the option  -T  with  argument
              dvi.  The output is

                     groff -ksS -Tdvi grnexmpl.g

              so  no  additional  option was added by grog.  As no option -marg was found by grog this file does
              not use a macro package.

SEE ALSO

       groff(1), troff(1), tbl(1), pic(1), chem(1), eqn(1), refer(1), grn(1), grap(1),  soelim(1),  groff_me(7),
       groff_ms(7), groff_mm(7), groff_mom(7), groff_man(7), groffer(1)

COPYING

       Copyright  (C)  1989-2003,  2006, 2007, 2009-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  Written by James Clark.
       Maintained by Werner Lemberg  ⟨wl@gnu.org⟩.   Rewritten  and  put  under  GPL  by  Bernd  Warken  <groff-
       bernd.warken-72@web.de>.

       This  file  is  part  of  grog, 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  (GPL)  as  published  by  the  Free
       Software Foundation, either version 2, or (at your option) any later version.

       You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with groff, see the files COPYING
       and LICENSE in the top directory of the groff source package.  Or read the man page gpl(1).  You can also
       write to the Free Software Foundation, 51 Franklin St - Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.