groff_diff(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual groff_diff(7)
Name
groff_diff - differences between GNU roff and AT&T troff
Description
The GNU roff text processing system, groff, is an extension of AT&T
troff, the typesetting system originating in Unix systems of the 1970s.
groff removes many arbitrary limitations and adds features, both to the
input language and to the page description language output by the troff
formatter. Differences arising from groff's implementation of AT&T
troff features are also noted. See roff(7) for background.
Language
GNU troff features identifiers of arbitrary length; supports color
output, non-integral type sizes, and user-defined characters; adds more
conditional expression operators; recognizes additional scaling units
and numeric operators; enables general file I/O (in "unsafe mode"
only); and exposes more formatter state.
Long names
GNU troff introduces many new requests; with three exceptions (cp, do,
rj), they have names longer than two characters. The names of
registers, fonts, strings/macros/diversions, environments, special
characters, streams, and colors can be of any length. Anywhere AT&T
troff supports a parameterized escape sequence that uses an opening
parenthesis "(" to introduce a two-character argument, groff supports a
square-bracketed form "[]" where the argument within can be of
arbitrary length.
Font families, abstract styles, and translation
GNU troff can group text typefaces into families containing each of the
styles "R", "I", "B", and "BI". So that a document need not be coupled
to a specific font family, an output device can associate a style in
the abstract sense with a mounting position. Thus the default family
can be combined with a style dynamically, producing a resolved font
name. A document can translate, or remap, fonts with the ftr request.
Applying the requests cs, bd, tkf, uf, or fspecial to an abstract style
affects the member of the default family corresponding to that style.
The default family can be set with the fam request or -f command-line
option. The styles directive in the output device's DESC file controls
which mounting positions (if any) are initially associated with
abstract styles rather than fonts, and the sty request can update this
association.
Colors
groff supports color output with a variety of color spaces and up to 16
bits per channel. Some devices, particularly terminals, may be more
limited. When color support is enabled, two colors are current at any
given time: the stroke color, with which glyphs, rules (lines), and
geometric figures are drawn, and the fill color, which paints the
interior of filled geometric figures. The color, defcolor, gcolor, and
fcolor requests; \m and \M escape sequences; and .color, .m, and .M
registers exercise color support.
Fractional type sizes and new scaling units
AT&T troff interpreted all type size measurements in points. Combined
with integer arithmetic, this design choice made it impossible to
support, for instance, ten and a half-point type. In GNU troff, an
output device can select a scaling factor that subdivides a point into
"scaled points". A type size expressed in scaled points can thus
represent a non-integral type size.
A scaled point is equal to 1/sizescale points, where sizescale is
specified in the device description file, DESC, and defaults to 1; see
groff_font(5). Requests and escape sequences in GNU troff interpret
arguments that represent a type size in points, which the formatter
multiplies by sizescale and converts to an integer. Arguments treated
in this way comprise those to the escape sequences \H and \s, to the
request ps, the third argument to the cs request, and the second and
fourth arguments to the tkf request. Scaled points may be specified
explicitly with the z scaling unit. In GNU troff, the register \n[.s]
can interpolate a non-integral type size. The register \n[.ps]
interpolates the type size in scaled points.
For example, if sizescale is 1000, then a scaled point is one
thousandth of a point. Consequently, ".ps 10.5" is synonymous with
".ps 10.5z"; both set the type size to 10,500 scaled points, or
10.5 points.
It makes no sense to use the "z" scaling unit in a numeric expression
whose default scaling unit is neither "u" nor "z", so GNU troff
disallows this. Similarly, it is nonsensical to use a scaling unit
other than "z" or "u" in a numeric expression whose default scaling
unit is "z", so GNU troff disallows this as well.
Another new scaling unit, "s", multiplies by the number of basic units
in a scaled point. Thus, "\n[.ps]s" is equal to "1m" by definition.
Do not confuse the "s" and "z" scaling units.
Output devices may be limited in the type sizes they can employ. The
.s and .ps registers represent the type size as selected by the output
driver as it understands a device's capability. The last requested
type size is interpolated in scaled points by the read-only register
.psr and in points as a decimal fraction by the read-only string-valued
register .sr. Both are associated with the environment. For example,
if a type size of 10.95 points is requested, and the nearest size
permitted by a sizes request (or by the sizes or sizescale directives
in the device's DESC file) is 11 points, the output driver uses the
latter value.
A further two new measurement units available in groff are "M", which
indicates hundredths of an em, and "f", which multiplies by 65,536.
The latter provides convenient fractions for color definitions with the
defcolor request. For example, 0.5f equals 32768u.
Numeric expressions
GNU troff permits spaces in a numeric expression within parentheses,
and offers three new operators.
e1>?e2 Interpolate the greater of e1 and e2.
e1<?e2 Interpolate the lesser of e1 and e2.
(c;e) Evaluate e using c as the default scaling unit, ignoring scaling
units in e if c is empty.
Conditional expressions
More conditions can be tested with the "if" and ie requests, as well as
the new "while" request.
c chr True if a character chr is available, where chr is an ordinary
character (Unicode basic Latin excluding control characters and
the space), a special character, or \N'index'.
d nam True if a string, macro, diversion, or request nam is defined.
F fnt True if a font fnt is available; fnt can be an abstract style or
a font name. fnt is handled as if it were accessed with the ft
request (that is, abstract styles and font translation are
applied), but fnt cannot be a mounting position, and no font is
mounted.
m col True if a color col is defined.
r reg True if a register reg is defined.
S sty True if a style sty is registered. Font translation applies.
v Always false. This condition is for compatibility with certain
other troff implementations only. (This refers to vtroff, a
translator that would convert the C/A/T output from early-
vintage AT&T troff to a form suitable for Versatec and Benson-
Varian plotters.)
Drawing commands
GNU troff offers drawing commands to create filled circles and
ellipses, and polygons. Stroked (outlined) objects are drawn with the
stroke color and filled (solid) ones shaded with the fill color. These
are independent properties; if you want a filled, stroked figure, you
must draw the same figure twice using each drawing command. A filled
figure is always smaller than a stroked one because the former is drawn
only within its defined area, whereas strokes have a line thickness
(set with another new drawing command, \D't').
Escape sequences
groff introduces several new escape sequences and extends the syntax of
a few AT&T troff escape sequences (namely, \D, \f, \k, \n, \s, \$, and
\*). In the following list, escape sequences are collated
alphabetically at first, and then by symbol roughly in Unicode code
point order.
\A'anything'
Interpolate 1 if anything is a valid identifier, and 0
otherwise. Because invalid input characters are removed,
invalid identifiers are empty or contain spaces, tabs, or
newlines. You can employ \A to validate a macro argument before
using it to construct another escape sequence or identifier.
\B'anything'
Interpolate 1 if anything is a valid numeric expression, and 0
otherwise. You might use \B along with the "if" request to
filter out invalid macro arguments.
\D'C d'
Draw filled circle of diameter d with its leftmost point at the
drawing position.
\D'E h v'
Draw filled ellipse with h and v as the axes and the leftmost
point at the drawing position.
\D'p h1 v1 ... hn vn'
Draw polygon with vertices at drawing position and each point in
sequence. GNU troff closes the polygon by drawing a line from
(hn, vn) back to the initial drawing position; DWB and Heirloom
troffs do not. Afterward, the drawing position is left at
(hn, vn).
\D'P h1 v1 ... hn vn'
As \D'p', but the polygon is filled.
\D't n'
Set line thickness of geometric objects to to n basic units. A
zero n selects the minimal supported thickness. A negative n
selects a thickness proportional to the type size; this is the
default.
\E Embed an escape character that is not interpreted in copy mode
(compare with \a and \t). You can use it to ease the writing of
nested macro definitions. It is also convenient to define
strings containing escape sequences that need to work when used
in copy mode (for example, as macro arguments), or which will be
interpolated at varying macro nesting depths.
\f[font]
Select font, which may be a mounting position, abstract style,
or font name, to choose the typeface. \f[] and \fP are
synonyms; we recommend the former.
\Ff
\F(fm
\F[family]
Select default font family. \F[] makes the previous font family
the default. \FP is unlike \fP; it selects font family "P" as
the default. See the fam request below.
\k(rg
\k[reg]
Mark horizontal drawing position in two-character register
name rg or arbitrary register name reg.
\mc
\m(cl
\m[col]
Set the stroke color. \m[] restores the previous stroke color,
or the default if there is none.
\Mc
\M(cl
\M[col]
Set the fill color. \M[] restores the previous fill color, or
the default if there is none.
\n[reg]
Interpolate register reg.
\On
\O[n] Suppress troff output of glyphs and geometric objects. The
sequences \O2, \O3, \O4, and \O5 are intended for internal use
by grohtml(1).
\O0
\O1 Disable and enable, respectively, the emission of glyphs
and geometric objects to the output driver, provided that
this sequence occurs at the outermost suppression level
(see \O3 and \O4). Horizontal motions corresponding to
non-overstruck glyph widths still occur. These sequences
also reset the registers opminx, opminy, opmaxx, and
opmaxy to -1. These four registers mark the top left and
bottom right hand corners of a box encompassing all
written or drawn output.
\O2 At the outermost suppression level, enable emission of
glyphs and geometric objects, and write to the standard
error stream the page number and values of the four
aforementioned registers encompassing glyphs written
since the last interpolation of a \O sequence, as well as
the page offset, line length, image file name (if any),
horizontal and vertical device motion quanta, and input
file name. Numeric values are in basic units.
\O3
\O4 Begin and end a nested suppression level, respectively.
grohtml uses this mechanism to create images of output
preprocessed with pic, eqn, and tbl. At startup, troff
is at the outermost suppression level. pre-grohtml
generates these sequences when processing the document,
using troff with the ps output device, Ghostscript, and
the PNM tools to produce images in PNG format. These
sequences start a new page if the device is not html or
xhtml, to reduce the number of images crossing a page
boundary.
\O5[Pfile]
At the outermost suppression level, write the name file
to the standard error stream at position P, which must be
one of l, r, c, or i, corresponding to left, right,
centered, and inline alignments within the document,
respectively. file is is a name associated with the
production of the next image.
\R'name +-n'
Synonymous with ".nr name +-n".
\s[+-n]
\s+-[n]
\s'+-n'
\s+-'n'
Set the type size to, or increment or decrement it by, n scaled
points.
\Ve
\V(ev
\V[env]
Interpolate contents of the environment variable env, as
returned by getenv(3). \V is interpreted even in copy mode.
\X'anything'
Within \X arguments, the escape sequences \&, \), \%, and \: are
ignored; \space and \~ are converted to single space characters;
and \\ is reduced to \. So that the basic Latin subset of the
Unicode character set (that is, ISO 646:1991-IRV or, popularly,
"US-ASCII") can be reliably encoded in anything, the special
character escape sequences \-, \[aq], \[dq], \[ga], \[ha],
\[rs], and \[ti] are mapped to basic Latin characters; see
groff_char(7). For this transformation, character translations
and definitions are ignored. Other escape sequences are not
supported.
If the use_charnames_in_special directive appears in the output
device's DESC file, the use of special character escape
sequences is not an error; they are simply output verbatim (with
the exception of the seven mapped to Unicode basic Latin
characters, discussed above). use_charnames_in_special is
currently employed only by grohtml(1).
\Ym
\Y(ma
\Y[mac]
Interpolate a macro as a device control command. This is
similar to \X'\*[mac]', except the contents of mac are not
interpreted, and mac can be a macro and thus contain newlines,
whereas the argument to \X cannot. This inclusion of newlines
requires an extension to the AT&T troff output format, and will
confuse postprocessors that do not know about it.
\Z'anything'
Save the drawing position, format anything, then restore it.
Tabs and leaders in the argument are ignored with an error
diagnostic.
\# Everything up to and including the next newline is ignored.
This escape sequence is interpreted even in copy mode. \# is
like \", except that \" does not ignore a newline; the latter
therefore cannot be used by itself for a whole-line comment--it
leaves a blank line on the input stream.
\$0 Interpolate the name by which the macro being interpreted was
called. In GNU troff this name can vary; see the als request.
\$(nn
\$[nnn]
In a macro or string definition, interpolate the nnth or nnnth
argument. Macros and strings can have an unlimited number of
arguments.
\$* In a macro or string definition, interpolate the catenation of
all arguments, separated by spaces.
\$@ In a macro or string definition, interpolate the catenation of
all arguments, with each surrounded by double quotes and
separated by spaces.
\$^ In a macro or string definition, interpolate the catenation of
all arguments constructed in a form suitable for passage to the
ds request.
\) Interpolate a transparent dummy character--one that is ignored
by end-of-sentence detection. It behaves as \&, except that \&
is treated as letters and numerals normally are after ".", "?",
and "!"; \& cancels end-of-sentence detection, and \) does not.
\*[string [arg ...]]
Interpolate string, passing it arg ... as arguments.
\/ Apply an italic correction: modify the spacing of the preceding
glyph so that the distance between it and the following glyph is
correct if the latter is of upright shape. For example, if an
italic "f" is followed immediately by a roman right parenthesis,
then in many fonts the top right portion of the "f" overlaps the
top left of the right parenthesis, which is ugly. Inserting \/
between them avoids this problem. Use this escape sequence
whenever an oblique glyph is immediately followed by an upright
glyph without any intervening space.
\, Apply a left italic correction: modify the spacing of the
following glyph so that the distance between it and the
preceding glyph is correct if the latter is of upright shape.
For example, if a roman left parenthesis is immediately followed
by an italic "f", then in many fonts the bottom left portion of
the "f" overlaps the bottom of the left parenthesis, which is
ugly. Inserting \, between them avoids this problem. Use this
escape sequence whenever an upright glyph is followed
immediately by an oblique glyph without any intervening space.
\: Insert a non-printing break point. That is, a word can break
there, but the soft hyphen character does not mark the break
point if it does (in contrast to "\%"). This escape sequence is
an input word boundary, so the remainder of the word is subject
to hyphenation as normal.
\?anything\?
When used in a diversion, this transparently embeds anything in
the diversion. anything is read in copy mode. When the
diversion is reread, anything is interpreted. anything may not
contain newlines; use \! if you want to embed newlines in a
diversion. The escape sequence \? is also recognized in copy
mode and becomes an internal code; it is this code that
terminates anything. Thus
.nr x 1
.nf
.di d
\?\\?\\\\?\\\\\\\\nx\\\\?\\?\?
.di
.nr x 2
.di e
.d
.di
.nr x 3
.di f
.e
.di
.nr x 4
.f
prints 4.
\[char]
Typeset the special character char.
\[base-char combining-component ...]
Typeset a composite glyph consisting of base-char overlaid with
one or more combining-components. For example, "\[A ho]" is a
capital letter "A" with a "hook accent" (ogonek). See the
composite request below; Groff: The GNU Implementation of troff,
the groff Texinfo manual, for details of composite glyph name
construction; and groff_char(7) for a list of components used in
composite glyph names.
\~ Insert an unbreakable space that is adjustable like an ordinary
space. It is discarded from the end of an output line if a
break is forced.
Restricted requests
To mitigate risks from untrusted input documents, the pi and sy
requests are disabled by default. troff(1)'s -U option enables the
formatter's "unsafe mode", restoring their function (and enabling
additional groff extension requests, open, opena, and pso).
New requests
.aln new old
Create alias new for existing register named old, causing the
names to refer to the same stored value. If old is undefined, a
warning in category "reg" is generated and the request is
ignored. To remove a register alias, invoke rr on its name. A
register's contents do not become inaccessible until it has no
more names.
.als new old
Create alias new for existing request, string, macro, or
diversion named old, causing the names to refer to the same
stored object. If old is undefined, a warning in category "mac"
is produced, and the request is ignored. The "am", "as", da,
de, di, and ds requests (together with their variants) create a
new object only if the name of the macro, diversion, or string
is currently undefined or if it is defined as a request;
normally, they modify the value of an existing object. To
remove an alias, invoke rm on its name. The object itself is
not destroyed until it has no more names.
When a request, macro, string, or diversion is aliased,
redefinitions and appendments "write through" alias names. To
replace an alias with a separately defined object, you must use
the rm request on its name first.
.am1 name [end-name]
As "am", but compatibility mode is disabled while the appendment
to name is interpreted: a "compatibility save" token is inserted
at its beginning, and a "compatibility restore" token at its
end. As a consequence, the requests "am", am1, de, and de1 can
be intermixed freely since the compatibility save/restore tokens
affect only the parts of the macro populated by am1 and de1.
.ami name [end-name]
Append to macro indirectly. See dei below.
.ami1 name [end-name]
As ami, but compatibility mode is disabled during interpretation
of the appendment.
.as1 name [contents]
As "as", but compatibility mode is disabled while the appendment
to name is interpreted: a "compatibility save" token is inserted
at the beginning of contents, and a "compatibility restore"
token after it. As a consequence, the requests "as", as1, ds,
and ds1 can be intermixed freely since the compatibility save/
restore tokens affect only the portions of the strings populated
by as1 and ds1.
.asciify div
Unformat the diversion div in a way such that Unicode basic
Latin (ASCII) characters, characters translated with the trin
request, space characters, and some escape sequences, that were
formatted in the diversion div are treated like ordinary input
characters when div is reread. Doing so can be useful in
conjunction with the writem request. asciify can be also used
for gross hacks; for example, the following sets register n
to 1.
.tr @.
.di x
@nr n 1
.br
.di
.tr @@
.asciify x
.x
asciify cannot return all items in a diversion to their source
equivalent: nodes such as those produced by \N[...] will remain
nodes, so the result cannot be guaranteed to be a pure string.
See section "Copy mode" in groff(7). Glyph parameters such as
the type face and size are not preserved; use unformat to
achieve that.
.backtrace
Write backtrace of input stack to the standard error stream.
See the -b option of troff(1).
.blm [name]
Set a blank line macro (trap). If a blank line macro is thus
defined, groff executes macro when a blank line is encountered
in the input file, instead of the usual behavior. A line
consisting only of spaces is also treated as blank and subject
to this trap. If no argument is supplied, the default blank
line behavior is (re-)established.
.box [name]
.boxa [name]
Divert (or append) output to name, similarly to the di and da
requests, respectively. Any pending output line is not included
in the diversion. Without an argument, stop diverting output;
any pending output line inside the diversion is discarded.
.break Exit a "while" loop. Do not confuse this request with a
typographical break or the br request. See "continue".
.brp Break and adjust line; this is the AT&T troff escape sequence \p
in request form.
.cflags n c1 c2 ...
Assign properties encoded by the number n to characters c1, c2,
and so on. Ordinary and special characters have certain
associated properties. (Glyphs don't: to GNU troff, like AT&T
device-independent troff, a glyph is an identifier corresponding
to a rectangle with some metrics; see groff_font(5).) The first
argument is the sum of the desired flags and the remaining
arguments are the characters to be assigned those properties.
Spaces between the cn arguments are optional. Any argument cn
can be a character class defined with the class request rather
than an individual character.
The non-negative integer n is the sum of any of the following.
Some combinations are nonsensical, such as "33" (1 + 32).
1 Recognize the character as ending a sentence if followed
by a newline or two spaces. Initially, characters ".?!"
have this property.
2 Enable breaks before the character. A line is not broken
at a character with this property unless the characters
on each side both have non-zero hyphenation codes. This
exception can be overridden by adding 64. Initially, no
characters have this property.
4 Enable breaks after the character. A line is not broken
at a character with this property unless the characters
on each side both have non-zero hyphenation codes. This
exception can be overridden by adding 64. Initially,
characters "-\[hy]\[em]" have this property.
8 Mark the glyph associated with this character as
overlapping other instances of itself horizontally.
Initially, characters
"\[ul]\[rn]\[ru]\[radicalex]\[sqrtex]" have this
property.
16 Mark the glyph associated with this character as
overlapping other instances of itself vertically.
Initially, the character "\[br]" has this property.
32 Mark the character as transparent for the purpose of end-
of-sentence recognition. In other words, an end-of-
sentence character followed by any number of characters
with this property is treated as the end of a sentence if
followed by a newline or two spaces. This is the same as
having a zero space factor in TeX. Initially, characters
"'")]*\[dg]\[dd]\[rq]\[cq]" have this property.
64 Ignore hyphenation codes of the surrounding characters.
Use this value in combination with values 2 and 4.
Initially, no characters have this property.
For example, if you need an automatic break point after
the en-dash in numeric ranges like "3000-5000", insert
.cflags 68 \[en]
into your document. However, this can lead to bad layout
if done without thinking; in most situations, a better
solution than changing the cflags value is inserting "\:"
right after the hyphen at the places that really need a
break point.
The remaining values were implemented for East Asian language
support; those who use alphabetic scripts exclusively can
disregard them.
128 Prohibit a break before the character, but allow a break
after the character. This works only in combination with
values 256 and 512 and has no effect otherwise.
Initially, no characters have this property.
256 Prohibit a break after the character, but allow a break
before the character. This works only in combination
with values 128 and 512 and has no effect otherwise.
Initially, no characters have this property.
512 Allow a break before or after the character. This works
only in combination with values 128 and 256 and has no
effect otherwise. Initially, no characters have this
property.
In contrast to values 2 and 4, the values 128, 256, and 512 work
pairwise. If, for example, the left character has value 512,
and the right character 128, no break will be automatically
inserted between them. If we use value 6 instead for the left
character, a break after the character can't be suppressed since
the neighboring character on the right doesn't get examined.
.char c contents
Define the ordinary or special character c as contents, which
can be empty. More precisely, char defines a groff object (or
redefines an existing one) that is accessed with the name c on
input, and produces contents on output. Every time c is to be
formatted, contents is processed in a temporary environment and
the result is wrapped up into a single object. Compatibility
mode is turned off and the escape character is set to \ while
contents is processed. Any emboldening, constant spacing, or
track kerning is applied to this object as a whole, not to each
character in contents.
An object defined by this request can be used just like a glyph
provided by the output device. In particular, other characters
can be translated to it with the tr request; it can be made the
tab or leader fill character with the tc and lc requests;
sequences of it can be drawn with the \l and \L escape
sequences; and, if the hcode request is used on c, it is subject
to automatic hyphenation.
To prevent infinite recursion, occurrences of c within its own
definition are treated normally (as if it were not being defined
with char). The tr and trin requests take precedence if char
both apply to c. A character definition can be removed with the
rchar request.
.chop object
Remove the last character from the macro, string, or diversion
object. This is useful for removing the newline from the end of
a diversion that is to be interpolated as a string. This
request can be used repeatedly on the same object; see section
"gtroff Internals" in Groff: The GNU Implementation of troff,
the groff Texinfo manual, for discussion of nodes inserted by
groff.
.class name c1 c2 ...
Define a character class (or simply "class") name comprising the
characters or range expressions c1, c2, and so on.
A class thus defined can then be referred to in lieu of listing
all the characters within it. Currently, only the cflags
request can handle references to character classes.
In the request's simplest form, each cn is a character (or
special character).
.class [quotes] ' \[aq] \[dq] \[oq] \[cq] \[lq] \[rq]
Since class and special character names share the same name
space, we recommend starting and ending the class name with "["
and "]", respectively, to avoid collisions with existing
character names defined by groff or the user (with char and
related requests). This practice applies the presence of "]" in
the class name to prevent the usage of the special character
escape form "\[...]", thus you must use the \C escape to access
a class with such a name.
You can also use a character range expression consisting of a
start character followed by "-" and then an end character.
Internally, GNU troff converts these two character names to
Unicode code points (according to the groff glyph list [GGL]),
which determine the start and end values of the range. If that
fails, the class definition is skipped. Furthermore, classes
can be nested.
.class [prepunct] , : ; > }
.class [prepunctx] \C'[prepunct]' \[u2013]-\[u2016]
The class "[prepunctx]" thus contains the contents of the class
"[prepunct]" and characters in the range U+2013-U+2016.
If you want to include "-" in a class, it must be the first
character value in the argument list, otherwise it gets
misinterpreted as part of the range syntax.
It is not possible to use class names as end points of range
definitions.
A typical use of the class request is to control line-breaking
and hyphenation rules as defined by the cflags request. For
example, to inhibit line breaks before the characters belonging
to the "[prepunctx]" class defined in the previous example, you
can write the following.
.cflags 2 \C'[prepunctx]'
.close stream
Close the stream named stream, invalidating it as an argument to
the write request. See open.
.composite c1 c2
Map character name c1 to character name c2 when c1 is a
combining component in a composite glyph. Typically, this
remaps a spacing glyph to a combining one.
.continue
Skip the remainder of a "while" loop's body, immediately
starting the next iteration. See break.
.color n
If n is non-zero or missing, enable colors (the default),
otherwise disable them.
.cp n If n is non-zero or missing, enable compatibility mode,
otherwise disable it. In compatibility mode, long names are not
recognized, and the incompatibilities they cause do not arise.
.defcolor ident scheme color-component
... Define a color named ident. scheme identifies a color
space and determines the number of required color-components; it
must be one of "rgb" (three components), "cmy" (three
components), "cmyk" (four components), or "gray" (one
component). "grey" is accepted as a synonym of "gray". The
color components can be encoded as a hexadecimal value starting
with # or ##. The former indicates that each component is in
the range 0-255 (0-FF), the latter the range 0-65535 (0-FFFF).
Alternatively, each color component can be specified as a
decimal fraction in the range 0-1, interpreted using a default
scaling unit of "f", which multiplies its value by 65,536 (but
clamps it at 65,535).
Each output device has a color named "default", which cannot be
redefined. A device's default stroke and fill colors are not
necessarily the same.
.de1 name [end-name]
Define a macro to be interpreted with compatibility mode
disabled. When name is called, compatibility mode enablement
status is saved; it is restored when the call completes.
.dei name [end-name]
Define macro indirectly, with the name of the macro to be
defined in string name and the name of the end macro terminating
its definition in string end-name.
.dei1 name [end-name]
As dei, but compatibility mode is disabled while the definition
of the macro named in string name is interpreted.
.device anything
Write anything, read in copy mode, to troff output as a device
control command. An initial neutral double quote is stripped to
allow the embedding of leading spaces.
.devicem name
Write contents of macro or string name to troff output as a
device control command.
.do name [arg ...]
Interpret the string, request, diversion, or macro name (along
with any arguments) with compatibility mode disabled.
Compatibility mode is restored (only if it was active) when the
expansion of name is interpreted; that is, the restored
compatibility state applies to the contents of the macro,
string, or diversion name as well as data read from files or
pipes if name is any of the so, soquiet, mso, msoquiet, or pso
requests.
For example,
.de mac1
FOO
..
.de1 mac2
groff
.mac1
..
.de mac3
compatibility
.mac1
..
.de ma
\\$1
..
.cp 1
.do mac1
.do mac2 \" mac2, defined with .de1, calls "mac1"
.do mac3 \" mac3 calls "ma" with argument "c1"
.do mac3 \[ti] \" groff syntax accepted in .do arguments
results in
FOO groff FOO compatibility c1 ~
as output.
.ds1 name contents
As ds, but compatibility mode is disabled while name is
interpreted: a "compatibility save" token is inserted at the
beginning of contents, and a "compatibility restore" token after
it.
.ecr Restore the escape character saved with ecs, or set escape
character to "\" if none has been saved.
.ecs Save the current escape character.
.evc env
Copy the properties of environment env to the current
environment, except for the following data.
o a partially collected line, if present;
o the interruption status of the previous input line (due to use
of the \c escape sequence);
o the count of remaining lines to center, to right-justify, or
to underline (with or without underlined spaces)--these are
set to zero;
o the activation status of temporary indentation;
o input traps and their associated data;
o the activation status of line numbering (which can be
reactivated with ".nm +0"); and
o the count of consecutive hyphenated lines (set to zero).
.fam [family]
Set default font family to family. If no argument is given, the
previous font family is selected, or the formatter's default
family if there is none. The formatter's default font family is
"T" (Times), but it can be overridden by the output device--see
groff_font(5). The default font family is associated with the
environment. See \F.
.fchar c contents
Define fallback character c as contents. The syntax of this
request is the same as the char request; the difference is that
a character defined with char hides a glyph with the same name
in the selected font, whereas characters defined with fchar are
checked only if c isn't found in the selected font. This test
happens before special fonts are searched.
.fcolor color
Set the fill color to color. Without an argument, the previous
fill color is selected.
.fschar f c contents
Define fallback special character c for font f as contents. A
character defined by fschar is located after the list of fonts
declared with fspecial is searched but before those declared
with the "special" request.
.fspecial f s1 s2 ...
When font f is selected, fonts s1, s2, ... are treated as
special; that is, they are searched for glyphs not found in f.
Any fonts specified in the "special" request are searched after
s1, s2, and so on. Without s arguments, fspecial clears the
list of fonts treated as special when f is selected.
.ftr f g
Translate font f to g. Whenever a font named f is referred to
in an \f escape sequence, in the F and S conditional expression
operators, or in the ft, ul, bd, cs, tkf, special, fspecial, fp,
or sty requests, font g is used. If g is missing or identical
to f, then font f is not translated.
.fzoom f zoom
Set zoom factor zoom for font f. zoom must a non-negative
integer multiple of 1/1000th. If it is missing or is equal to
zero, it means the same as 1000, namely no magnification.
f must be a resolved font name, not an abstract style.
.gcolor color
Set the stroke color to color. Without an argument, the
previous stroke color is selected.
.hcode c1 code1 [c2 code2] ...
Set the hyphenation code of character c1 to code1, that of c2 to
code2, and so on. A hyphenation code must be an ordinary
character (not a special character escape sequence) other than a
digit. The request is ignored if given no arguments.
For hyphenation to work, hyphenation codes must be set up. At
startup, groff assigns hyphenation codes to the letters "a-z"
(mapped to themselves), to the letters "A-Z" (mapped to "a-z"),
and zero to all other characters. Normally, hyphenation
patterns contain only lowercase letters which should be applied
regardless of case. In other words, they assume that the words
"ABBOT" and "Abbot" should be hyphenated exactly as "abbot" is.
hcode extends this principle to letters outside the Unicode
basic Latin alphabet; without it, words containing such letters
won't be hyphenated properly even if the corresponding
hyphenation patterns contain them.
.hla lang
Set the hyphenation language to lang. Hyphenation exceptions
specified with the hw request and hyphenation patterns and
exceptions specified with the hpf and hpfa requests are
associated with the hyphenation language. The hla request is
usually invoked by a localization file, which is in turn loaded
by the troffrc or troffrc-end file; see the hpf request below.
The hyphenation language is associated with the environment.
.hlm [n]
Set the maximum number of consecutive hyphenated lines to n. If
n is negative, there is no maximum. If omitted, n is -1. This
value is associated with the environment. Only lines output
from a given environment count towards the maximum associated
with that environment. Hyphens resulting from \% are counted;
explicit hyphens are not.
.hpf pattern-file
Read hyphenation patterns from pattern-file. This file is
sought in the same way that macro files are with the mso request
or the -mname command-line option to groff(1) and troff(1).
The pattern-file should have the same format as (simple) TeX
pattern files. The following scanning rules are implemented.
o A percent sign starts a comment (up to the end of the line)
even if preceded by a backslash.
o "Digraphs" like \$ are not supported.
o "^^xx" (where each x is 0-9 or a-f) and ^^c (character c in
the code point range 0-127 decimal) are recognized; other uses
of ^ cause an error.
o No macro expansion is performed.
o hpf checks for the expression \patterns{...} (possibly with
whitespace before or after the braces). Everything between
the braces is taken as hyphenation patterns. Consequently,
"{" and "}" are not allowed in patterns.
o Similarly, \hyphenation{...} gives a list of hyphenation
exceptions.
o \endinput is recognized also.
o For backwards compatibility, if \patterns is missing, the
whole file is treated as a list of hyphenation patterns (but
the "%" character is still recognized as the start of a
comment).
Use the hpfcode request (see below) to map the encoding used in
hyphenation pattern files to groff's input encoding.
The set of hyphenation patterns is associated with the
hyphenation language set by the hla request. The hpf request is
usually invoked by a localization file loaded by the troffrc
file. By default, troffrc loads the localization file for
English. (As of groff 1.23.0, localization files for Czech
(cs), German (de), English (en), French (fr), Japanese (ja),
Swedish (sv), and Chinese (zh) exist.) For Western languages,
the localization file sets the hyphenation mode and loads
hyphenation patterns and exceptions.
A second call to hpf (for the same language) replaces the old
patterns with the new ones.
Invoking hpf causes an error if there is no hyphenation
language.
If no hpf request is specified (either in the document, in a
file loaded at startup, or in a macro package), GNU troff won't
automatically hyphenate at all.
.hpfa pattern-file
As hpf, except that the hyphenation patterns and exceptions from
pattern-file are appended to the patterns already applied to the
hyphenation language of the environment.
.hpfcode a b [c d] ...
Define mapping values for character codes in pattern files.
This is an older mechanism no longer used by groff's own macro
files; for its successor, see hcode above. hpf or hpfa apply
the mapping after reading or appending to the active list of
patterns. Its arguments are pairs of character codes--integers
from 0 to 255. The request maps character code a to code b,
code c to code d, and so on. Character codes that would
otherwise be invalid in groff can be used. By default, every
code maps to itself except those for letters "A" to "Z", which
map to those for "a" to "z".
.hym [length]
Set the (right) hyphenation margin to length. If the adjustment
mode is not "b" or "n", the line is not hyphenated if it is
shorter than length. Without an argument, the default
hyphenation margin is reset to its default value, 0. The
default scaling unit is "m". The hyphenation margin is
associated with the environment. A negative argument resets the
hyphenation margin to zero, emitting a warning in category
"range".
.hys [hyphenation-space]
Suppress hyphenation of the line in adjustment modes "b" or "n",
if it can be justified by adding no more than hyphenation-space
extra space to each inter-word space. Without an argument, the
hyphenation space adjustment threshold is set to its default
value, 0. The default scaling unit is "m". The hyphenation
space adjustment threshold is associated with the current
environment. A negative argument resets the hyphenation space
adjustment threshold to zero, emitting a warning in category
"range".
.itc n name
As "it", but lines interrupted with the \c escape sequence are
not applied to the line count.
.kern n
If n is non-zero or missing, enable pairwise kerning (the
default), otherwise disable it.
.length reg anything
Compute the number of characters in anything and return the
count in the register reg. If reg doesn't exist, it is created.
anything is read in copy mode.
.ds xxx abcd\h'3i'efgh
.length yyy \*[xxx]
\n[yyy]
14
.linetabs n
If n is non-zero or missing, enable line-tabs mode, otherwise
disable it (the default). In this mode, tab stops are computed
relative to the start of the pending output line, instead of the
drawing position corresponding to the start of the input line.
Line-tabs mode is a property of the environment.
For example, the following
.ds x a\t\c
.ds y b\t\c
.ds z c
.ta 1i 3i
\*x
\*y
\*z
yields
a b c
whereas in line-tabs mode, the same input gives
a b c
instead.
.lsm [name]
Set the leading space macro (trap) to name. If there are
leading space characters on an input line, name is invoked in
lieu of the usual roff behavior; the leading spaces are removed.
The count of leading spaces on an input line is stored in
\n[lsn], and the amount of corresponding horizontal motion in
\n[lss], irrespective of whether a leading space trap is set.
When it is, the leading spaces are removed from the input line,
and no motion is produced before calling name. If no argument
is supplied, the default leading space behavior is
(re-)established.
.mso file
As "so", except that file is sought in the same directories as
arguments to the groff(1) and troff(1) -m command-line option
are (the "tmac path"). If the file name to be interpolated has
the form name.tmac and it isn't found, mso tries to include
tmac.name instead and vice versa. If file does not exist, a
warning in category "file" is emitted and the request has no
other effect.
.msoquiet file
As mso, but no warning is emitted if file does not exist.
.nop anything
Interpret anything as if it were an input line. nop resembles
".if 1"; it puts a break on the output if anything is empty.
Unlike "if", it cannot govern conditional blocks. Its
application is to maintain consistent indentation within macro
definitions even when producing text lines.
.nroff Make the n conditional expression evaluate true and t false.
See troff.
.open stream file
Open file for writing and associate stream with it. See write
and close.
.opena stream file
As open, but if file exists, append to it instead of truncating
it.
.output contents
Emit contents, which are read in copy mode, to the formatter
output; this is similar to \! used in the top-level diversion.
An initial neutral double quote in contents is stripped to allow
the embedding of leading spaces.
.pev Report the state of the current environment followed by that of
all other environments to the standard error stream.
.pnr Write the names and values of all currently defined registers to
the standard error stream.
.psbb file
Get the bounding box of a PostScript image file. This file must
conform to Adobe's Document Structuring Conventions; the request
attempts to extract the bounding box values from a %%BoundingBox
comment. After invocation, the x and y coordinates (in
PostScript units) of the lower left and upper right corners can
be found in the registers \n[llx], \n[lly], \n[urx], and
\n[ury], respectively. If an error occurs, these four registers
are set to zero.
.pso command
As "so", except that input comes from the standard output stream
of command.
.ptr Report the names and vertical positions of all page location
traps to the standard error stream. Empty slots in the list are
shown as well, because they can affect the visibility of
subsequently planted traps.
.pvs +-n
Set the post-vertical line spacing to n; default scaling unit
is "p". With no argument, the post-vertical line space is set
to its previous value.
In GNU troff, the distance between text baselines consists of
the extra pre-vertical line spacing set by the most negative \x
argument on the pending output line, the vertical spacing (vs),
the extra post-vertical line spacing set by the most positive \x
argument on the pending output line, and the post-vertical line
spacing set by this request.
.rchar c ...
Remove definition of each ordinary or special character c,
undoing the effect of a char, fchar, or schar request. Glyphs,
which are defined by font description files, cannot be removed.
Spaces and tabs may separate c arguments.
.return
Within a macro, return immediately. If called with an argument,
return twice, namely from the current macro and from the macro
one level higher. No effect otherwise.
.rfschar f c ...
Remove each fallback special character c for font f. Spaces and
tabs may separate c arguments. See fschar.
.rj [n]
Right-align the next n input lines. Without an argument, right-
align the next input line. rj implies ".ce 0", and ce implies
".rj 0".
.rnn r1 r2
Rename register r1 to r2. If r1 doesn't exist, the request is
ignored.
.schar c contents
Define global fallback character c as contents. See char; the
distinction is that a character defined with schar is located
after the list of fonts declared with the special request but
before any mounted special fonts.
.shc [c]
Set the soft hyphen character, inserted when a word is
hyphenated automatically or at a hyphenation character, to c.
If c is omitted, the soft hyphen character is set to the
default, \[hy]. If the selected glyph does not exist in the
font in use at a potential hyphenation point, then the line is
not broken at that point. Neither character definitions (char
and similar) nor translations (tr and similar) are considered
when assigning the soft hyphen character.
.shift n
In a macro, shift the arguments by n positions: argument i
becomes argument i-n; arguments 1 to n are no longer available.
If n is missing, arguments are shifted by 1. No effect
otherwise.
.sizes s1 s2 ... sn [0]
Set the available type sizes to s1, s2, ... sn scaled points.
The list of sizes can be terminated by an optional "0". Each si
can also be a range m-n. In contrast to the device description
file directive of the same name (see groff_font(5)), the
argument list can't extend over more than one line.
.soquiet file
As "so", but no warning is emitted if file does not exist.
.special f ...
Declare each font f as special, searching it for glyphs not
found in the selected font. Without arguments, this list of
special fonts is made empty.
.spreadwarn [limit]
Emit a break warning if the additional space inserted for each
space between words in an output line adjusted to both margins
with ".ad b" is larger than or equal to limit. A negative value
is treated as zero; an absent argument toggles the warning on
and off without changing limit. The default scaling unit is m.
At startup, spreadwarn is inactive and limit is 3 m.
For example, ".spreadwarn 0.2m" causes a warning if break
warnings are not suppressed and troff must add 0.2 m or more for
each inter-word space in a line.
.stringdown str
.stringup str
Alter the string named str by replacing each of its bytes with
its lowercase (down) or uppercase (up) version (if one exists).
Special characters (see groff_char(7)) will often transform in
the expected way due to the regular naming convention for
accented characters. When they do not, use substrings and/or
catenation.
.ds resume R\['e]sum\['e]\"
\*[resume]
.stringdown resume
\*[resume]
.stringup resume
\*[resume]
Resume resume RESUME
.sty n s
Associate abstract style s with font mounting position n.
.substring string start [end]
Replace the string named string with its substring bounded by
the indices start and end, inclusively. The first character in
the string has index 0. If end is omitted, it is implicitly set
to the largest valid value (the string length minus one).
Negative indices count backwards from the end of the string: the
last character has index -1, the character before the last has
index -2, and so on.
.ds xxx abcdefgh
.substring xxx 1 -4
\*[xxx]
bcde
.substring xxx 2
\*[xxx]
de
.tkf f s1 n1 s2 n2
Enable track kerning for font f. When the current font is f the
width of every glyph is increased by an amount between n1 and
n2; when the current type size is less than or equal to s1 the
width is increased by n1; when it is greater than or equal to s2
the width is increased by n2; when the type size is greater than
or equal to s1 and less than or equal to s2 the increase in
width is a linear function of the type size.
.tm1 message
As tm request, but strips a leading neutral double quote from
message to allow the embedding of leading spaces.
.tmc message
As tm1 request, but does not append a newline.
.trf file
Transparently output the contents of file file. Each line is
output as if preceded by \!; however, the lines are not subject
to copy-mode interpretation. If the file does not end with a
newline, then a newline is added. Unlike cf, file cannot
contain characters that are invalid as input to GNU troff.
For example, you can define a macro x containing the contents of
file f, using
.di x
.trf f
.di
.trin abcd
This is the same as the tr request except that the asciify
request uses the character code (if any) before the character
translation. Example:
.trin ax
.di xxx
a
.br
.di
.xxx
.trin aa
.asciify xxx
.xxx
The result is "x a". Using tr, the result would be "x x".
.trnt abcd
This is the same as the tr request except that the translations
do not apply to text that is transparently throughput into a
diversion with \!. For example,
.tr ab
.di x
\!.tm a
.di
.x
prints b; if trnt is used instead of tr it prints a.
.troff Make the t conditional expression evaluate true and n false.
See nroff.
.unformat div
Unformat the diversion div. Unlike asciify, unformat handles
only tabs and spaces between words, the latter usually arising
from spaces or newlines in the input. Tabs are treated as input
tokens, and spaces become adjustable again. The vertical sizes
of lines are not preserved, but glyph information (font, type
size, space width, and so on) is retained.
.vpt n If n is non-zero or missing, enable vertical position traps (the
default), otherwise disable them. Vertical position traps are
those set by the ch, wh, and dt requests.
.warn [n]
Select the categories, or "types", of reported warnings. n is
the sum of the numeric codes associated with each warning
category that is to be enabled; all other categories are
disabled. The categories and their associated codes are listed
in section "Warnings" of troff(1). For example, ".warn 0"
disables all warnings, and ".warn 1" disables all warnings
except those about missing glyphs. If no argument is given, all
warning categories are enabled.
.warnscale si
Set the scaling unit used in warnings to si. Valid values for
si are u, i (the default), c, p, and P.
.while cond-expr anything
Evaluate the conditional expression cond-expr, and repeatedly
execute anything unless and until cond-expr evaluates false.
anything, which is often a conditional block, is referred to as
the while request's body.
troff treats the body of a while request similarly to that of a
de request (albeit one not read in copy mode), but stores it
under an internal name and deletes it when the loop finishes.
The operation of a macro containing a while request can slow
significantly if the while body is large. Each time the macro
is executed, the while body is parsed and stored again. An
often better solution--and one that is more portable, since AT&T
troff lacked the while request--is to instead write a recursive
macro. It will be parsed only once (unless you redefine it).
To prevent infinite loops, the default number of available
recursion levels is 1,000 or somewhat less (because things other
than macro calls can be on the input stack). You can disable
this protective measure, or raise the limit, by setting the
slimit register. See section "Debugging" below.
If a while body begins with a conditional block, its closing
brace must end an input line.
The break and continue requests alter a while loop's flow of
control.
.write stream anything
Write anything to stream, which must previously have been the
subject of an open request, followed by a newline. anything is
read in copy mode. An initial neutral double quote in anything
is stripped to allow the embedding of leading spaces.
.writec stream anything
As write, but without a trailing newline.
.writem stream name
Write the contents of the macro or string name to stream, which
must previously have been the subject of an open request. name
is read in copy mode.
Extended requests
.cf file
In a diversion, embed an object which, when reread, will cause
the contents of file to be copied verbatim to the output. In
AT&T troff, the contents of file are immediately copied to the
output regardless of whether a diversion is being written to;
this behavior is so anomalous that it must be considered a bug.
.de name [end-name]
.am name [end-name]
.ds name [contents]
.as name [contents]
In compatibility mode, these requests behave similarly to de1,
am1, ds1, and as1, respectively: a "compatibility save" token is
inserted at the beginning, and a "compatibility restore" token
at the end, with compatibility mode switched on during
execution.
.hy n New values 16 and 32 are available; the former enables
hyphenation before the last character in a word, and the latter
enables hyphenation after the first character in a word.
.ss word-space-size [additional-sentence-space-size]
A second argument sets the amount of additional space separating
sentences on the same output line. If omitted, this amount is
set to word-space-size. Both arguments are in twelfths of
current font's space width (typically one-fourth to one-third em
for Western scripts; see groff_font(5)). The default for both
parameters is 12. Negative values are erroneous.
.ta [[n1 n2 ... nn ]T r1 r2 ... rn]
groff supports an extended syntax to specify repeating tab stops
after the "T" mark. These values are always taken as relative
distances from the previous tab stop. This is the idiomatic way
to specify tab stops at equal intervals in groff.
The syntax summary above instructs groff to set tabs at
positions n1, n2, ..., nn, then at nn+r1, nn+r2, ..., nn+rn,
then at nn+rn+r1, nn+rn+r2, ..., nn+rn+rn, and so on.
New registers
GNU troff exposes more formatter state via many new read-only
registers. Their names often correspond to the requests that affect
them.
\n[.br] Within a macro call, interpolate 1 if the macro is called
with the "normal" control character ("." by default), and 0
otherwise. This facility allows the reliable modification
of requests. Using this register outside of a macro
definition makes no sense.
.als bp*orig bp
.de bp
.tm before bp
.ie \\n[.br] .bp*orig
.el 'bp*orig
.tm after bp
..
\n[.C] Interpolate 1 if compatibility mode is in effect,
0 otherwise. See cp.
\n[.cdp] Interpolate depth of last glyph added to the environment.
It is positive if the glyph extends below the baseline.
\n[.ce] Interpolate number of input lines remaining to be centered.
\n[.cht] Interpolate height of last glyph added to the environment.
It is positive if the glyph extends above the baseline.
\n[.color] Interpolate 1 if colors are enabled, 0 otherwise.
\n[.cp] Within a "do" request, interpolate the saved value of
compatibility mode (see \n[.C] above).
\n[.csk] Interpolate skew of last glyph added to the environment.
The skew of a glyph is how far to the right of the center
of a glyph the center of an accent over that glyph should
be placed.
\n[.ev] Interpolate name of current environment. This is a string-
valued register.
\n[.fam] Interpolate name of default font family. This is a string-
valued register.
\n[.fn] Interpolate resolved name of the selected font. This is a
string-valued register.
\n[.fp] Interpolate next free font mounting position.
\n[.g] Interpolate 1. Test with "if" or ie to check whether GNU
troff is the formatter.
\n[.height] Interpolate font height. See \H.
\n[.hla] Interpolate hyphenation language of the environment. This
is a string-valued register.
\n[.hlc] Interpolate count of immediately preceding consecutive
hyphenated lines in the environment.
\n[.hlm] Interpolate maximum number of consecutive hyphenated lines
allowed in the environment.
\n[.hy] Interpolate hyphenation mode of the environment.
\n[.hym] Inteprolate hyphenation margin of the environment.
\n[.hys] Interpolate hyphenation space adjustment threshold of the
environment.
\n[.in] Interpolate indentation amount applicable to the pending
output line.
\n[.int] Interpolate 1 if the previous output line was interrupted
(ended with \c), 0 otherwise.
\n[.kern] Interpolate 1 if pairwise kerning is enabled, 0 otherwise.
\n[.lg] Interpolate ligature mode.
\n[.linetabs]
Interpolate 1 if line-tabs mode is enabled, 0 otherwise.
\n[.ll] Interpolate line length applicable to the pending output
line.
\n[.lt] Interpolate title line length.
\n[.m] Interpolate name of the selected stroke color. This is a
string-valued register.
\n[.M] Interpolate name of the selected fill color. This is a
string-valued register.
\n[.ne] Interpolate amount of space demanded by the most recent ne
request that caused a page location trap to be sprung. See
\n[.trunc].
\n[.nm] Interpolate 1 if output line numbering is enabled (even if
temporarily suppressed), 0 otherwise.
\n[.ns] Interpolate 1 if no-space mode is enabled, 0 otherwise.
\n[.O] Interpolate output suppression level. See \O.
\n[.P] Interpolate 1 if the current page is selected for output.
See -o command-line option to troff(1).
\n[.pe] Interpolate 1 during page ejection, 0 otherwise.
\n[.pn] Interpolate next page number (either that set by pn, or
that of the current page plus 1).
\n[.ps] Interpolate type size in scaled points.
\n[.psr] Interpolate most recently requested type size in scaled
points.
\n[.pvs] Interpolate post-vertical line spacing amount.
\n[.rj] Interpolate number of input lines remaining to be right-
aligned.
\n[.slant] Interpolate font slant. See \S.
\n[.sr] Interpolate most recently requested type size in points as
a decimal fraction. This is a string-valued register.
\n[.ss]
\n[.sss] Interpolate values of minimal inter-word space and
additional inter-sentence space, respectively, in twelfths
of the space width of the selected font.
\n[.sty] Interpolate selected abstract font style, if any. This is
a string-valued register.
\n[.tabs] Interpolate representation of the tab stop settings in a
form suitable for passage to the ta request.
\n[.trunc] Interpolate amount of vertical space truncated by the most
recently sprung page location trap, or, if the trap was
sprung by an ne request, minus the amount of vertical
motion produced by the ne request. In other words, at the
point a trap is sprung, \n[.trunc] represents the
difference of what the vertical position would have been
but for the trap, and what the vertical position actually
is. See \n[.ne].
\n[.U] Interpolate 1 if in unsafe mode, 0 otherwise. See -U
command-line option to troff(1).
\n[.vpt] Interpolate 1 if vertical position traps are enabled,
0 otherwise.
\n[.warn] Interpolate warning mode. See section "Warnings" of
troff(1).
\n[.x] Interpolate major version number of the running troff
formatter. For example, if the version number is 1.23.0,
then \n[.x] contains 1.
\n[.y] Interpolate minor version number of the running troff
formatter. For example, if the version number is 1.23.0,
then \n[.y] contains 23.
\n[.Y] Interpolate revision number of the running troff formatter.
For example, if the version number is 1.23.0, then \n[.Y]
contains 0.
\n[.zoom] Interpolate magnification of font, in thousandths, or 0 if
magnification unused. See fzoom.
The following (writable) registers are set by the psbb request.
\n[llx]
\n[lly]
\n[urx]
\n[ury]
Interpolate the (upper, lower, left, right) bounding box values
(in PostScript units) of the most recently processed PostScript
image.
The following (writable) registers are set by the \w escape sequence.
\n[rst]
\n[rsb] Like \n[st] and \n[sb], but taking account of the heights and
depths of glyphs. In other words, these registers store the
highest and lowest vertical positions attained by the argument
formatted by the \w escape sequence, doing what AT&T troff
documented \n[st] and \n[sb] as doing.
\n[ssc] The amount of horizontal space (possibly negative) that should
be added to the last glyph before a subscript.
\n[skw] How far to right of the center of the last glyph in the \w
argument, the center of an accent from a roman font should be
placed over that glyph.
Other writable registers are as follows. Those relating to date and
time are initialized using localtime(3) at formatter startup.
\n[c.] Interpolate input line number. \n[.c] is a read-only alias
of this register.
\n[hours] Interpolate number of hours elapsed since midnight.
\n[hp] Interpolate horizontal position relative to that at the
start of the input line.
\n[lsn]
\n[lss] Interpolate count of leading spaces on input line and
amount of corresponding horizontal motion, respectively.
\n[minutes] Interpolate number of minutes elapsed in the hour.
\n[seconds] Interpolate number of seconds elapsed in the minute.
\n[systat] Interpolate return value of system(3) function executed by
most recent sy request.
\n[slimit] Interpolates maximum quantity of objects on troff's
internal input stack (default: 1000). If non-positive,
there is no limit: recursion can continue until program
memory is exhausted.
\n[year] Interpolate Gregorian year. AT&T troff's \[yr]
interpolates the Gregorian year minus 1900.
Miscellaneous
GNU troff predefines one string, .T, containing the argument given to
the -T command-line option, namely the output device (for example, pdf
or utf8). The (read-only) register .T interpolates 1 if GNU troff is
run with the -T command-line option, and 0 otherwise.
A font not listed in the output device's DESC file's fonts directive is
automatically mounted at the next available font position when it is
selected. If you mount a font explicitly with the fp request, you
should do so on the first unused position, which can be found in the
.fp register.
Unparameterized string interpolation does not conceal the arguments to
a macro being interpreted. Thus, in a macro definition, the call of
another macro with the existing argument list,
.xx \\$@
is more efficiently done with
\\*[xx]\\
(that is, with string interpolation). The trailing backslashes prevent
the final newline in the macro definition from being interpolated,
potentially putting an unwanted blank line on the output. See section
"Punning Names" in groff(7).
If a font description file contains pairwise kerning information,
glyphs from that font are kerned. Kerning between two glyphs can be
inhibited by placing a dummy character \& between them.
GNU troff keeps track of the nesting depth of escape sequence
interpolations and other uses of delimiters, as in the tl request and
the output comparison operator (that is, input like 'foo'bar' as a
conditional expression), so the only characters you need to avoid using
as delimiters are those that appear in the arguments you input, not any
that result from interpolation. Typically, ' works fine. Use visible
characters as delimiters in GNU troff, not "ASCII" controls like BEL
(Control+G). The implementation of \$@ ensures that the double quotes
surrounding an argument appear at an interpolation depth different from
that of the arguments themselves. Similarly, in bracket-form escape
sequences like \f[ZCMI], a right bracket ] does not end the sequence
unless it occurs at the same interpolation depth as the opening [, so
input like
\f[\*[my-family]\*[my-style]]
works as desired. In compatibility mode, no attention is paid to the
interpolation depth.
In GNU troff, the tr request can map characters to the unbreakable
space escape sequence \~ as a special case (tr normally operates only
on characters). This feature replaces the odd-parity tr mapping trick
used in AT&T troff documents, where a character, often ~, was
"sacrificed" by mapping it to "nothing", drafting it into use as an
unadjustable, unbreakable space. (This feature was gratuitous even in
early AT&T troff, which supported the \space escape sequence by 1976.)
Often, it makes more sense to use GNU troff's \~ escape sequence
instead, which has been adopted by every other active troff
implementation except that of Illumos, as well as by the non-troff
mandoc. Translation of a character to \~ is unnecessary.
GNU troff permits tabs and spaces after the first dot on a control line
that ends a macro definition.
.if t \{\
. de bar
. nop Hello, I'm 'bar'.
. .
.\}
Formatter output
The page description language output by GNU troff is modeled after that
used by AT&T troff once the latter adopted a device-independent
approach in the early 1980s. Only the differences are documented here.
For a fuller discussion, see groff_out(5).
Glyph and font names can be of arbitrary length; postprocessors should
not assume that they are at most two characters. A glyph to be
formatted is always drawn from the current font; in contrast to AT&T
device-independent troff, drivers need not search special fonts to find
a glyph.
Units
The argument to the s command is in scaled points (units of points/n,
where n is the argument to the sizescale command in the DESC file).
The argument to the "x H" command is also in scaled points.
Simple commands
If the tcommand directive is present in the output device's DESC file,
GNU troff employs the following two commands.
t xyz...
Typeset word xyz; that is, set a sequence of ordinary glyphs
named x, y, z, ..., terminated by a space or newline; an
optional second integer argument is ignored (this allows the
formatter to generate an even number of arguments). Each glyph
is set at the current drawing position, and the position is then
advanced horizontally by the glyph's width. A glyph's width is
read from its metrics in the font description file, scaled to
the current type size, and rounded to a multiple of the
horizontal motion quantum. Use the C command to emplace glyphs
of special characters.
u n xyz...
Typeset word xyz with track kerning. As t, but after placing
each glyph, the drawing position is further advanced
horizontally by n basic units.
New commands implement color support.
mc cyan magenta yellow
md
mg gray
mk cyan magenta yellow black
mr red green blue
Set the components of the stroke color with respect to various
color spaces. md resets the stroke color to the default value.
The arguments are integers in the range 0 to 65535.
A new device control subcommand is available.
x u n If n is 1, start underlining of spaces. If n is 0, stop
underlining of spaces. This facility is needed for the cu
request in nroff mode and is ignored otherwise.
Extended drawing commands
GNU pic does not produce troff escape sequences employing these
extensions if its -n option is given.
Df n Set the shade of gray used to fill geometric objects to n, which
must be an integer. 0 corresponds to white and 1000 to black.
A grayscale ramp spans the two. A value outside this range uses
the stroke color as the fill color. The fill color is opaque.
Normally the default is black, but some drivers may provide a
way of changing this. Df is obsolete since 2002, superseded by
DFg below.
The corresponding \D'f' escape sequence should not be used: its
argument is rounded to an integer multiple of the horizontal
motion quantum, which can limit the precision of n.
DC d Draw a filled circle of diameter d with its leftmost point at
the drawing position.
DE h v Draw a filled ellipse, of horizontal axis h and vertical axis v,
with its leftmost point at the drawing position.
Dp dx_1 dy_1 ldots dx_n dy_n" Draw a polygon with, for i = 1,
ldots, n + 1, its ith vertex at the drawing position + <sum>_(j
= 1)^(i - 1) (dx_j, dy_j). groff output drivers automatically
close polygons, drawing a line from (dx_n, dy_n) back to (dx_1,
dy_1). The drawing position is left at the last specified
vertex, but this may change in a future version of GNU troff.
Heirloom Doctools troff, like DWB troff, by default does not
close the polygon. In its groff compatibility mode, Heirloom
closes the polygon but leaves the drawing position
unchanged--that is, at the polygon's initial drawing position.
At the moment, GNU pic uses this command only to generate
triangles and rectangles.
DP dx_1 dy_1 ldots dx_n dy_n" As Dp, but draw a filled rather than
a stroked polygon.
Dt n Set the line thickness to n basic units. AT&T troff output
drivers use a thickness proportional to the type size; this is
the GNU troff default. A negative n requests this explicitly.
An n of zero selects the smallest available line thickness.
A difficulty arises in how the drawing position should be changed after
the execution of these commands. This has little importance to most
users, since the output of GNU grn and pic does not depend on it.
Given a drawing command of the form Dz x_1 y_1 ldots x_n y_n, where z
is not c or e, AT&T troff treats each x_i as a horizontal motion, each
y_i as a vertical one, and therefore assumes that the width of the
drawn object is <sum>_(i = 1)^n x_i, and its height is <sum>_(i = 1)^n
y_i. (Verify its assumption about height by examining the st and sb
registers after using such a drawing command in a \w escape sequence).
For the sake of compatibility, GNU troff also follows this rule, even
though it frustrates extensions to the D command that set drawing
parameters rather than rendering objects, producing ugly results in the
case of Dt and Df, or otherwise don't parameterize objects as a series
of vertices, as with GNU troff's filled ellipse, DE. Thus after
executing a D command of the form Dz x_1 y_1 ldots x_n y_n, the drawing
position should be increased by (<sum>_(i = 1)^n x_i, <sum>_(i = 1)^n
y_i). In a future release, GNU troff and its output drivers may
abandon the application of this assumption to drawing commands not
explicitly specified in the AT&T "Troff User's Manual".
Fill color selection is implemented with another set of extensions.
DFc cyan magenta yellow
DFd
DFg gray
DFk cyan magenta yellow black
DFr red green blue
Set the components of the fill color as described under the \M
escape sequence above. DFd restores the device's default fill
color. The drawing position is not updated, in contrast to Df.
Device control syntax extension
GNU troff introduces a line continuation convention, permitting the
argument to the x X command to contain newlines. A newline in the
input is transformed to the sequence "newline+". When interpreting an
x X command, a postprocessor should therefore be prepared for a plus
sign after a newline; if it occurs, preserve the newline, discard the
plus sign, and continue to collect the input into the argument of the x
X command. A newline not followed by a plus sign terminates the x X
command. An application of this feature is the embedding of PostScript
or PDF language command streams into troff output.
GNU troff guarantees that the first three output commands it emits are
as follows.
x T device
x res n h v
x init
Debugging
In addition to AT&T troff's debugging features, GNU troff emits more
error diagnostics when syntactical or semantic nonsense is encountered
and supports several warning categories; the output of these can be
selected with warn. Also see the -E, -w, and -W options of troff(1).
Backtraces can be automatically produced when errors or warnings occur
(the -b option of troff(1)) or generated on demand (backtrace).
groff also adds more flexible diagnostic output requests (tmc and tm1).
More aspects of formatter state can be examined with requests that
write lists of defined registers (pnr), environments (pev), and page
location traps (ptr) to the standard error stream.
Implementation differences
GNU troff's features sometimes cause incompatibilities with documents
written assuming old implementations of troff. Some GNU extensions to
troff are supported by other implementations.
When adjusting to both margins, AT&T troff at first adjusts spaces
starting from the right; GNU troff begins from the left. Both
implementations adjust spaces from opposite ends on alternating output
lines to prevent "rivers" in the text.
GNU troff does not always hyphenate words as AT&T troff does. The AT&T
implementation uses a set of hard-coded rules specific to U.S. English,
while GNU troff uses language-specific hyphenation pattern files
derived from TeX. In some versions of troff there was limited space to
store hyphenation exceptions (arguments to the hw request); GNU troff
has no such restriction.
Long names may be GNU troff's most obvious innovation. AT&T troff
interprets ".dsabcd" as defining a string "ab" with contents "cd".
Normally, GNU troff interprets this as a call of a macro named
"dsabcd". AT&T troff also interprets \*[ and \n[ as an interpolation
of a string or register, respectively, called "[". In GNU troff,
however, the "[" is normally interpreted as beginning the enclosure of
a long identifier. In compatibility mode, GNU troff interprets names
in the traditional way, which means that they are limited to one or two
characters. See the -C option in troff(1) and, above, the .C and .cp
registers, and cp and "do" requests, for more on compatibility mode.
The register \n[.cp] is specialized and may require a statement of
rationale. When writing macro packages or documents that use GNU troff
features and which may be mixed with other packages or documents that
do not--common scenarios include serial processing of man pages or use
of the "so" or mso requests--you may desire correct operation
regardless of compatibility mode enablement in the surrounding context.
It may occur to you to save the existing value of \n(.C into a
register, say, _C, at the beginning of your file, turn compatibility
mode off with ".cp 0", then restore it from that register at the end
with ".cp \n(_C". At the same time, a modular design of a document or
macro package may lead you to multiple layers of inclusion. You cannot
use the same register name everywhere lest you "clobber" the value from
a preceding or enclosing context. The two-character register name
space of AT&T troff is confining and mnemonically challenging; you may
wish to use GNU troff's more capacious name space. However, attempting
".nr _my_saved_C \n(.C" will not work in compatibility mode; the
register name is too long. "This is exactly what .do is for," you
think, ".do nr _my_saved_C \n(.C". The foregoing will always save zero
to your register, because "do" turns compatibility mode off while it
interprets its argument list. What you need is:
.do nr _my_saved_C \n[.cp]
.cp 0
at the beginning of your file, followed by
.cp \n[_my_saved_C]
.do rr _my_saved_C
at the end. As in the C language, we all have to share one big name
space, so choose a register name that is unlikely to collide with other
uses.
The existence of the .T string is a common feature of post-CSTR #54
troffs--DWB 3.3, Solaris, Heirloom Doctools, and Plan 9 troff all
support it--but valid values are specific to each implementation. The
behavior of the .T register in GNU troff differs from AT&T troff, which
interpolated 1 only if nroff was the formatter and was called with -T.
The lf request sets the number of the current input line in AT&T troff,
and the next in GNU troff.
AT&T troff had only environments named "0", "1", and "2". In GNU
troff, any number of environments may exist, using any valid
identifiers for their names.
GNU troff normally tracks the interpolation depth of escape sequence
parameters and other delimited structures, but not in compatibility
mode. See section "Miscellaneous" above.
In compatibility mode, the escape sequences \f, \H, \m, \M, \R, \s, and
\S are transparent at the beginning of an input line for the purpose of
recognizing a control character, because they modify formatter state
(\R) or properties of the environment (the rest) and therefore do not
create output nodes. For example, this code produces bold output in
both cases, but the text differs,
.de xx '
Hello!
..
\fB.xx\fP
formatting ".xx" normally and "Hello!" in compatibility mode.
GNU troff request names unrecognized by other troff implementations
will likely be ignored; escape sequences that are GNU troff extensions
are liable to format their function selector character. For example,
the adjustable, non-breaking space escape sequence \~ is also supported
by Heirloom Doctools troff 050915 (September 2005), mandoc 1.9.5
(2009-09-21), neatroff (commit 1c6ab0f6e, 2016-09-13), and Plan 9 from
User Space troff (commit 93f8143600, 2022-08-12), but not by
Solaris/Illumos troffs, which will render it as ~.
GNU troff does not allow the use of the escape sequences \|, \^, \&,
\{, \}, \space, \', \`, \-, \_, \!, \%, or \c in identifiers; AT&T
troff does. The \A escape sequence (see subsection "Escape sequences"
above) may be helpful in avoiding their use.
Normally, the syntax form \sn accepts only a single character (a digit)
for n, consistently with other forms that originated in AT&T troff,
like \*, \$, \f, \g, \k, \n, and \z. In compatibility mode only, a
non-zero n must be in the range 4-39. Legacy documents relying upon
this quirk of parsing should be migrated to another \s form.
[Background: The Graphic Systems C/A/T phototypesetter (the original
device target for AT&T troff) supported only a few discrete type sizes
in the range 6-36 points, so Ossanna contrived a special case in the
parser to do what the user must have meant. Kernighan warned of this
in the 1992 revision of CSTR #54 (<section>2.3), and more recently,
McIlroy referred to it as a "living fossil".]
Fractional type sizes cause one noteworthy incompatibility. In AT&T
troff the ps request ignores scaling units and thus ".ps 10u" sets the
type size to 10 points, whereas in GNU troff it sets the type size to
10 scaled points, which may be a much smaller measurement. See
subsection "Fractional type sizes and new scaling units" above.
The ab request differs from AT&T troff: GNU troff writes no message to
the standard error stream if no arguments are given, and it exits with
a failure status instead of a successful one.
The bp request differs from AT&T troff: GNU troff does not accept a
scaling unit on the argument, a page number; the former (somewhat
uselessly) does.
In AT&T troff the pm request reports macro, string, and diversion sizes
in units of 128-byte blocks, and an argument reduces the report to a
sum of the above in the same units. GNU troff ignores any arguments
and reports the sizes in bytes.
Unlike AT&T troff, GNU troff does not ignore the ss request if the
output is a terminal device; instead, the values of minimum inter-word
and additional inter-sentence space are each rounded down to the
nearest multiple of 12.
In GNU troff there is a fundamental difference between (unformatted)
characters and (formatted) glyphs. Everything that affects how a glyph
is output is stored with the glyph node; once a glyph node has been
constructed, it is unaffected by any subsequent requests that are
executed, including bd, cs, tkf, tr, or fp requests. Normally, glyphs
are constructed from characters immediately before the glyph is added
to an output line. Macros, diversions, and strings are all, in fact,
the same type of object; they contain a sequence of intermixed
character and glyph nodes. Special characters transform from one to
the other: before being added to the output, they behave as characters;
afterward, they are glyphs. A glyph node does not behave like a
character node when it is processed by a macro: it does not inherit any
of the special properties that the character from which it was
constructed might have had. For example, the input
.di x
\\\\
.br
.di
.x
produces "\\" in GNU troff. Each pair of backslashes becomes one
backslash glyph; the resulting backslashes are thus not interpreted as
escape characters when they are reread as the diversion is output.
AT&T troff would interpret them as escape characters when rereading
them and end up printing one "\".
One way to format a backslash in most documents is with the \e escape
sequence; this formats the glyph of the current escape character,
regardless of whether it is used in a diversion; it also works in both
GNU troff and AT&T troff. (Naturally, if you've changed the escape
character, you need to prefix the "e" with whatever it is--and you'll
likely get something other than a backslash in the output.)
The other correct way, appropriate in contexts independent of the
backslash's common use as a roff escape character--perhaps in
discussion of character sets or other programming languages--is the
character escape \(rs or \[rs], for "reverse solidus", from its name in
the ECMA-6 (ISO/IEC 646) standard. [This escape sequence is not
portable to AT&T troff, but is to its lineal descendant, Heirloom
Doctools troff, as of its 060716 release (July 2006).]
To store an escape sequence in a diversion that is interpreted when the
diversion is reread, either use the traditional \! transparent output
facility, or, if this is unsuitable, the new \? escape sequence. See
subsection "Escape sequences" above and sections "Diversions" and
"gtroff Internals" in Groff: The GNU Implementation of troff, the groff
Texinfo manual.
In the somewhat pathological case where a diversion exists containing a
partially collected line and a partially collected line at the top-
level diversion has never existed, AT&T troff will output the partially
collected line at the end of input; GNU troff will not.
Formatter output incompatibilities
Its extensions notwithstanding, the groff intermediate output format
has some incompatibilities with that of AT&T troff, but better
compatibility is sought; problem reports and patches are welcome. The
following incompatibilities are known.
o The drawing position after rendering polygons is inconsistent with
AT&T troff practice. Other implementations have diverged on this
point as well.
o The output cannot be easily rescaled to other devices as AT&T troff's
could.
Authors
This document was written by James Clark <jjc@jclark.com>, Werner
Lemberg <wl@gnu.org>, Bernd Warken <groff-bernd.warken-72@web.de>, and
G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>.
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".
"Troff User's Manual" by Joseph F. Ossanna, 1976 (revised by Brian W.
Kernighan, 1992), AT&T Bell Laboratories Computing Science Technical
Report No. 54, widely called simply "CSTR #54", documents the language,
device and font description file formats, and output format referred to
collectively in groff documentation as AT&T troff.
"A Typesetter-independent TROFF" by Brian W. Kernighan, 1982, AT&T Bell
Laboratories Computing Science Technical Report No. 97, provides
additional insights into the device and font description file formats
and output format.
groff(1), groff(7), roff(7)
groff 1.23.0 2 July 2023 groff_diff(7)
groff 1.23.0 - Generated Fri Dec 22 13:24:32 CST 2023