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gtroff has several requests for including files:
Read in the specified file and includes it in place of the
so request. This is quite useful for large documents, e.g.
keeping each chapter in a separate file. See gsoelim, for more
information.
Since gtroff replaces the so request with the contents of
file, it makes a difference whether the data is terminated with a
newline or not: Assuming that file xxx contains the word
‘foo’ without a final newline, this
This is .so xxx bar
yields ‘This is foobar’.
The search path for file can be controlled with the -I command line option.
Read the standard output from the specified command and includes
it in place of the pso request.
This request causes an error if used in safer mode (which is the
default). Use groff’s or troff’s -U option to
activate unsafe mode.
The comment regarding a final newline for the so request is valid
for pso also.
Identical to the so request except that gtroff searches
for the specified file in the same directories as macro files for
the the -m command line option. If the file name to be
included has the form name.tmac and it isn’t found,
mso tries to include tmac.name and vice versa.
If the file does not exist, a warning of type ‘file’ is emitted.
See Debugging, for information about warnings.
Transparently output the contents of file. Each line is output as
if it were 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 (trf only). For example, to
define a macro x containing the contents of
file f, use
.ev 1 .di x .trf f .di .ev
The calls to ev prevent that the current partial input line
becomes part of the diversion.
Both trf and cf, when used in a diversion, embeds an
object in the diversion which, when reread, causes the contents of
file to be transparently copied through to the output. In
UNIX troff, the contents of file is immediately
copied through to the output regardless of whether there is a current
diversion; this behaviour is so anomalous that it must be considered a
bug.
While cf copies the contents of file completely
unprocessed, trf disallows characters such as NUL that are not
valid gtroff input characters (see Identifiers).
For cf, within a diversion, ‘completely unprocessed’ means that
each line of a file to be inserted is handled as if it were preceded by
\!\\!.
Both requests cause a line break.
Force gtroff to continue processing of the file specified as an
argument. If no argument is given, immediately jump to the end of file.
Read from standard input, and include what is read as though it were part of the input file. Text is read until a blank line is encountered.
If standard input is a TTY input device (keyboard), write prompt to standard error, followed by a colon (or send BEL for a beep if no argument is given).
Arguments after prompt are available for the input. For example, the line
.rd data foo bar
with the input ‘This is \$2.’ prints
This is bar.
Using the nx and rd requests, it is easy to set up form
letters. The form letter template is constructed like this, putting the
following lines into a file called repeat.let:
.ce \*(td .sp 2 .nf .rd .sp .rd .fi Body of letter. .bp .nx repeat.let
When this is run, a file containing the following lines should be
redirected in. Note that requests included in this file are executed as
though they were part of the form letter. The last block of input is
the ex request, which tells groff to stop processing. If
this was not there, groff would not know when to stop.
Trent A. Fisher 708 NW 19th Av., #202 Portland, OR 97209 Dear Trent, Len Adollar 4315 Sierra Vista San Diego, CA 92103 Dear Mr. Adollar, .ex
Pipe the output of gtroff to the shell command(s) specified by
pipe. This request must occur before gtroff has a chance
to print anything.
pi causes an error if used in safer mode (which is the default).
Use groff’s or troff’s -U option to activate
unsafe mode.
Multiple calls to pi are allowed, acting as a chain. For
example,
.pi foo .pi bar ...
is the same as ‘.pi foo | bar’.
Note that the intermediate output format of gtroff is piped to
the specified commands. Consequently, calling groff without the
-Z option normally causes a fatal error.
Execute the shell command(s) specified by cmds. The output is not saved anyplace, so it is up to the user to do so.
This request causes an error if used in safer mode (which is the
default). Use groff’s or troff’s -U option to
activate unsafe mode.
For example, the following code fragment introduces the current time into a document:
.sy perl -e 'printf ".nr H %d\\n.nr M %d\\n.nr S %d\\n",\
(localtime(time))[2,1,0]' > /tmp/x\n[$$]
.so /tmp/x\n[$$]
.sy rm /tmp/x\n[$$]
\nH:\nM:\nS
Note that this works by having the perl script (run by sy)
print out the nr requests that set the number registers
H, M, and S, and then reads those commands in with
the so request.
For most practical purposes, the number registers seconds,
minutes, and hours, which are initialized at start-up of
gtroff, should be sufficient. Use the af request to get a
formatted output:
.af hours 00 .af minutes 00 .af seconds 00 \n[hours]:\n[minutes]:\n[seconds]
The systat read-write number register contains the return value
of the system() function executed by the last sy request.
Open the specified file for writing and associates the specified stream with it.
The opena request is like open, but if the file exists,
append to it instead of truncating it.
Both open and opena cause an error if used in safer mode
(which is the default). Use groff’s or troff’s
-U option to activate unsafe mode.
Write to the file associated with the specified stream. The
stream must previously have been the subject of an open request. The
remainder of the line is interpreted as the ds request reads its
second argument: A leading ‘"’ is stripped, and it is read in
copy-in mode.
The writec request is like write, but only write
appends a newline to the data.
Write the contents of the macro or string xx to the file associated with the specified stream.
xx is read in copy mode, i.e., already formatted elements are
ignored. Consequently, diversions must be unformatted with the
asciify request before calling writem. Usually, this
means a loss of information.
Close the specified stream; the stream is no longer an acceptable
argument to the write request.
Here a simple macro to write an index entry.
.open idx test.idx . .de IX . write idx \\n[%] \\$* .. . .IX test entry . .close idx
Interpolate the contents of the specified environment variable env
(one-character name e, two-character name ev) as
returned by the function getenv. \V is interpreted in
copy-in mode.
Next: Postprocessor Access, Previous: Colors, Up: gtroff Reference [Contents][Index]