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Table of Contents

1. Introduction and preliminaries
- 1.1 Introduction to m4
- 1.2 Historical references
- 1.3 Problems and bugs
- 1.4 Using this manual
2. Invoking m4
- 2.1 Command line options for operation modes
- 2.2 Command line options for preprocessor features
- 2.3 Command line options for limits control
- 2.4 Command line options for frozen state
- 2.5 Command line options for debugging
- 2.6 Specifying input files on the command line
3. Lexical and syntactic conventions
- 3.1 Macro names
- 3.2 Quoting input to m4
- 3.3 Comments in m4 input
- 3.4 Other kinds of input tokens
- 3.5 How m4 copies input to output
4. How to invoke macros
- 4.1 Macro invocation
- 4.2 Preventing macro invocation
- 4.3 Macro arguments
- 4.4 On Quoting Arguments to macros
- 4.5 Macro expansion
5. How to define new macros
- 5.1 Defining a macro
- 5.2 Arguments to macros
- 5.3 Special arguments to macros
- 5.4 Deleting a macro
- 5.5 Renaming macros
- 5.6 Temporarily redefining macros
- 5.7 Indirect call of macros
- 5.8 Indirect call of builtins
6. Conditionals, loops, and recursion
- 6.1 Testing if a macro is defined
- 6.2 If-else construct, or multibranch
- 6.3 Recursion in m4
- 6.4 Iteration by counting
- 6.5 Iteration by list contents
- 6.6 Working with definition stacks
- 6.7 Building macros with macros
7. How to debug macros and input
- 7.1 Displaying macro definitions
- 7.2 Tracing macro calls
- 7.3 Controlling debugging output
- 7.4 Saving debugging output
8. Input control
- 8.1 Deleting whitespace in input
- 8.2 Changing the quote characters
- 8.3 Changing the comment delimiters
- 8.4 Changing the lexical structure of words
- 8.5 Saving text until end of input
9. File inclusion
- 9.1 Including named files
- 9.2 Searching for include files
10. Diverting and undiverting output
- 10.1 Diverting output
- 10.2 Undiverting output
- 10.3 Diversion numbers
- 10.4 Discarding diverted text
11. Macros for text handling
- 11.1 Calculating length of strings
- 11.2 Searching for substrings
- 11.3 Searching for regular expressions
- 11.4 Extracting substrings
- 11.5 Translating characters
- 11.6 Substituting text by regular expression
- 11.7 Formatting strings (printf-like)
12. Macros for doing arithmetic
- 12.1 Decrement and increment operators
- 12.2 Evaluating integer expressions
13. Macros for running shell commands
- 13.1 Determining the platform
- 13.2 Executing simple commands
- 13.3 Reading the output of commands
- 13.4 Exit status
- 13.5 Making temporary files
14. Miscellaneous builtin macros
- 14.1 Printing error messages
- 14.2 Printing current location
- 14.3 Exiting from m4
15. Fast loading of frozen state
- 15.1 Using frozen files
- 15.2 Frozen file format
16. Compatibility with other versions of m4
- 16.1 Extensions in GNU M4
- 16.2 Facilities in System V m4 not in GNU m4
- 16.3 Other incompatibilities
17. Correct version of some examples
- 17.1 Solution for exch
- 17.2 Solution for forloop
- 17.3 Solution for foreach
- 17.4 Solution for copy
- 17.5 Solution for m4wrap
- 17.6 Solution for cleardivert
- 17.7 Solution for capitalize
- 17.8 Solution for fatal_error
A. How to make copies of the overall M4 package
- A.1 License for copying the M4 package
B. How to make copies of this manual
- B.1 License for copying this manual
C. Indices of concepts and macros
- C.1 Index for all m4 macros
- C.2 Index for many concepts

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