GROFF_FILENAMES
NAME
DESCRIPTION
COMPRESSION OF ROFF FILES
MAN PAGES
TRADITIONAL TROFF EXTENSIONS
NEW GROFF EXTENSIONS
AUTHORS
SEE ALSO
NAME
groff_filenames − filename extensions for roff and groff
DESCRIPTION
Since the evolution of roff in the 1970s, a whole bunch of filename extensions for roff files were used.
The roff extensions refer to preprocessors or macro packages. These extensions are fixed in all Unix−like operating systems.
Later on, groff added some more extensions. This man page is about these filename extensions.
COMPRESSION OF ROFF FILES
Each roff file can be optionally compressed. That means that the total filename ends with a compressor name. So the whole filename has the structure
Best-known are the compressor extensions .Z, .gz, and .bzip2. Relatively new is .xz.
From now on, we will ignore the compressions and only comment the structure
MAN PAGES
The Unix manual pages are widely called man pages. The man page style is the best known part of the roff language.
The extensions for man should be better documented. So this is documented here.
Files written in the man language use the following extension: *.
Man page Sections
The traditional man page
Classic man page sections.
In older commercial Unix systems, the 3 characters l, n, and o were also used as section names. This is today deprecated, but there are still documents in this format.
Deprecated man page sections, which stood for “local”, “new”, and “old”, respectively.
Man page Group Extensions
The
Examples:
groff.1
is the man page for groff in section 1 without a group
xargs.1posix.gz
is the man page for the program xargs in section 1 and group posix; moreover it is compressed with gz (gzip).
config.5ssl
OpenSSL CONF library configuration files from section 5 with group ssl.
dpkg−reconfigure.8cdebconf
man page for the program dpkg−reconfigure in section 8 and group cdebconf.
Source of man pages
There are 2 roff languages for writing man pages: man and mdoc.
The names of these 2 styles are taken as extensions for the source code files of man pages in the groff package.
traditional Unix-like man page format within groff source files.
A temporary man page file produced from a name.man man page by a run of make within the groff source package.
Man page format in BSD.
Man page format in heirloom roff .
Files using this extension recognize both man page formats in groff and other processors.
TRADITIONAL TROFF EXTENSIONS
Files Using Macro Packages
The classical roff languages were interpreted by the traditional troff and nroff programs.
There were several roff languages, each represented by a macro-package. Each of these provided a suitable file name extension:
roff file using the me macro package.
roff file using the mm macro package
roff file using the ms macro package
All of these classical roff languages and their extensions are still very active in groff.
Source Code for Macro Packages (TMAC Files)
In traditional roff the source code for the macro packages was stored in TMAC files. Their file names have the form:
tmac.
For example, tmac.an is the source for the man macro package.
In the groff source, more suitable file names were integrated, see later on.
Preprocessors
Moreover, the following preprocessors were used as filename extension:
for the integration of chemical formulas
for the mathematical use of equations
graphical tool
for tables with tbl
for files using the prefer preprocessor
Classical Roff Files
for files using the roff language of any kind
NEW GROFF EXTENSIONS
GNU roff groff is the actual roff standard, both for classical roff and new extensions. So even the used new extensions in the source code should be regarded as actual standard. The following extensions are used instead of classical .t or .tr:
general ending for files using the groff language
Source Code for Macro Packages (TMAC Files)
As the classical form tmac.
m
groff_m
Files Using new Macro Packages
Groff uses the following new macro packages:
file with swedish mm macros for groff
files written in the groff macro package mom
files written in HTML-like groff macros.
Preprocessors and Postprocessors
Heidelberger tables, an alternative to the preprocessor tbl. See groff_hdtbl(7).
files written for the graphical grap processor.
for including gremlin(1), pictures, see grn(1).
transform this file with pdfroff of the groff system
AUTHORS
This document was written by Bernd Warken.
SEE ALSO
History and future
roff(7), man−pages(7), groff_diff(7), groff(7)
Compression
uncompress(1posix), gzip2(1), bzip2(1), xz(1)
A man page of the naming form name(n) can be read in text mode by
man n name
or in graphical mode (PDF) by
groffer n name
Gunnar Ritter’s Heirloom roff project. You can get this package with the shell command:
$ git clone https://github.com/n−t−roff/heirloom−doctools