GROG(1)                                                       General Commands Manual                                                      GROG(1)

NAME

       grog -- guess options for a following groff command

SYNOPSIS

       grog [-C] [--run] [--warnings] [--ligatures] [ groff-option ....]  [--] [ filespec ....]
       grog -h | --help
       grog -v | --version

DESCRIPTION

       grog  reads  the  input  (file  names or standard input) and guesses which of the groff(1) options are needed to perform the input with the
       groff program.

              The corresponding groff command is usually displayed in standard output.  With the option --run, the generated line is  output  into
              standard error and the generated groff command is run on the standard output.

OPTIONS

       The  option  -v  or --version prints information on the version number.  Also -h or --help prints usage information.  Both of these options
       automatically end the grog program.  Other options are thenignored, and no groff command line is generated.  The following  3  options  are
       the only grog options,

       -C     this option means enabling the groff compatibility mode, which is also transfered to the generated groff command line.

       --ligatures
              this option forces to include the arguments -P-y -PU within the generated groff command line.

       --run  with this option, the command line is output at standard error and then run on the computer.

       --warnings
              with this option, some more warnings are output to standard error.

       All  other  specified short options (words starting with one minus character -) are interpreted as groff options or option clusters with or
       without argument.  No space is allowed between options and their argument.  Except from the -marg options, all options will be  passed  on,
       i.e. they are included unchanged in the command for the output without effecting the work of grog.

       A  filespec  argument  can  either be the name of an existing file or a single minus - to mean standard input.  If no filespec is specified
       standard input is read automatically.

DETAILS

       grog reads all filespec parameters as a whole.  It tries to guess which of the following groff options are required for running  the  input
       under groff: -e, -g, -G, -j, -J, -p, -R, -s, -t.  -man, -mdoc, -mdoc-old, -me, -mm, -mom, and -ms.

       The guessed groff command including those options and the found filespec parameters is put on the standard output.

       It is possible to specify arbitrary groff options on the command line.  These are passed on the output without change, except for the -marg
       options.

       The groff program has trouble when the wrong -marg option or several of these options are specified.  In these cases, grog  will  print  an
       error  message  and  exit with an error code.  It is better to specify no -marg option.  Because such an option is only accepted and passed
       when grog does not find any of these options or the same option is found.

       If several different -marg options are found by grog an error message is produced and the program is terminated with an  error  code.   But
       the output is written with the wrong options nevertheless.

       Remember  that  it  is not necessary to determine a macro package.  A roff file can also be written in the groff language without any macro
       package.  grog will produce an output without an -marg option.

       As groff also works with pure text files without any roff requests, grog cannot be used to identify a file to be a roff file.

       The groffer(1) program heavily depends on a working grog.

       The grog source contains two files written in different programming languages: grog.pl is the Perl version, while grog.sh is a shell script
       using  awk(1).   During  the run of make(1), it is determined whether the system contains a suitable version of perl(1).  If so, grog.pl is
       transformed into grog; otherwise grog.sh is used instead.

EXAMPLES

       * Calling

                grog meintro.me

         results in

                groff -me meintro.me

         So grog recognized that the file meintro.me is written with the -me macro package.

       * On the other hand,

                grog pic.ms

         outputs

                groff -p -t -e -ms pic.ms

         Besides determining the macro package -ms, grog recognized that the file pic.ms additionally needs -pte, the combination of -p  for  pic,
         -t for tbl, and -e for eqn.

       * If both of the former example files are combined by the command

                grog meintro.me pic.ms

         an error message is sent to standard error because groff cannot work with two different macro packages:

                grog: error: there are several macro packages: -me -ms

         Additionally the corresponding output with the wrong options is printed to standard output:

                groff -pte -me -ms meintro.me pic.ms

         But the program is terminated with an error code.

       * The call of

                grog -ksS -Tdvi grnexmpl.g

         contains  several groff options that are just passed on the output without any interface to grog.  These are the option cluster -ksS con-
         sisting of -k, -s, and -S; and the option -T with argument dvi.  The output is

                groff -k -s -S -Tdvi grnexmpl.g

         so no additional option was added by grog.  As no option -marg was found by grog this file does not use a macro package.

SEE ALSO

       groff(1), groffer(1) troff(1), tbl(1), pic(1), chem(1), eqn(1), refer(1), grn(1), grap(1), soelim(1)
              Man-pages of section 1 can be viewed with either
                     $ man name
              for text mode or
                     $ groffer name
              for graphical mode (default is PDF mode).

       groff_me(7), groff_ms(7), groff_mm(7), groff_mom(7), groff_man(7)
              Man-pages of section 7 can be viewed with either with
                     $ man 7 name
              for text mode or
                     $ groffer 7 name
              for graphical mode (default is PDF mode).

COPYING

       Copyright (C) 1989-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

       This file is part of grog, which 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.

       groff is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
       FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

       The text for GPL2 is available in the internet at GNU copyleft site <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.txt>.

AUTHORS

       Written by James Clark.

       Maintained by Werner Lemberg <wl@gnu.org>.

       Rewritten and put under GPL by Bernd Warken <groff-bernd.warken-72@web.de>.

Groff Version 1.22.3                                             10 February 2018                                                          GROG(1)