GROFF_FILENAMES
Section: Environments, Tables, and Troff Macros (7)
Updated: 4 November 2014
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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.
We will now write a
man-page 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
<name>CB].
<extension>[CB].
<compression>].
Mostly 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
<name>.<extension>.
MAN-PAGES
The
Unix manual pages
are shortly named
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:
*.<section>[<group>].
Man-page Sections
The traditional
man-page <section>
is a digit from
1
to
8.
- <name>.1
-
<name>.2
<name>.3
<name>.4
<name>.5
<name>.6
<name>.7
<name>.8
Classic man-page
sections.
Linux added the section number
9
for kernel man-pages.
- <name>.9
-
Linux
kernel man-pages
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.
- <name>.l
-
<name>.n
<name>.o
Deprecated
old
man-page sections.
Man-page Group Extensions
The
<group>
extension in
.<section>[<group>]
is optional, but it can be any string of word characters.
Usually programmers use a group name that is already used, e.g.
x
for
X Window System
documents or
tk
to refer to the
tk
programming language.
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.
- <name>.man
-
traditional
Unix-like man-page format within groff source files.
- <name>.n
-
A temporary man-page file produced from a
name.man
man-page by a run of
make
within the
groff
source package.
- <name>.mdoc
-
Man-page format in BSD.
- <name>.1b
-
Man-page format in
heirloom roff .
- <name>.mandoc
-
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:
- <name>.me
-
roff
file using the
me
macro package.
- <name>.mm
-
roff
file using the
mm
macro package
- <name>.ms
-
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.<package>,
-
<package>
is the name of the macro package without the leading
m
character, which is reintegrated by the option
-m.
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:
- <name>.chem
-
for the integration of chemical formulas
- <name>.eqn
-
for the mathematical use of equations
- <name>.pic
-
graphical tool
- <name>.tbl
-
for tables with
tbl
- <name>.ref
-
for files using the
prefer
preprocessor
Classical Roff Files
- <name>.t
-
<name>.tr
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:
- <name>.groff
-
<name>.roff
general ending for files using the
groff language
Source Code for Macro Packages (TMAC Files)
As the classical form
tmac.<package_without_m>,
of the
TMAC
file names is quite strange,
groff
added the following structures:
- <package_without_m>.tmac
-
m<package>.tmac
groff_m<package>.tmac
Files Using new Macro Packages
Groff
uses the following new macro packages:
- <name>.mmse
-
file with swedish
mm
macros
for
groff
- <name>.mom
-
files written in the
groff macro package
mom
- <name>.www
-
files written in
HTML-like
groff
macros.
Preprocessors and Postprocessors
- <name>.hdtbl
-
a new
tbl
format.
See
groff_hdtbl(7).
- <name>.grap
-
files written for the graphical
grap
processor.
- <name>.grn
-
for including
gremlin(1),
pictures, see
grn(1).
- <name>.pdfroff
-
transform this file with
pdfroff
of the
groff
system
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[aq]s Heirloom roff project
You can get this package with the shell command:
-
[Do] git clone https://github.com/n-t-roff/heirloom-doctools
COPYING
Copyright [co] 2013-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This file is part of groff, a free software project. You can
redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
Public License version 2 (GPL2) as published by the Free Software
Foundation (FSF).
The license text can be found in the internet at
AUTHORS
This file was written by
Bernd Warken
Index
- NAME
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- COMPRESSION OF ROFF FILES
-
- MAN-PAGES
-
- Man-page Sections
-
- Man-page Group Extensions
-
- Source of Man-pages
-
- TRADITIONAL TROFF EXTENSIONS
-
- Files Using Macro Packages
-
- Source Code for Macro Packages (TMAC Files)
-
- Preprocessors
-
- Classical Roff Files
-
- NEW GROFF EXTENSIONS
-
- Source Code for Macro Packages (TMAC Files)
-
- Files Using new Macro Packages
-
- Preprocessors and Postprocessors
-
- SEE ALSO
-
- COPYING
-
- AUTHORS
-
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