m4(1) [linux man page]

M4(1)								   User Commands							     M4(1)

NAME

       m4 - macro processor

SYNOPSIS

       m4 [OPTION]... [FILE]...

DESCRIPTION

       Process macros in FILEs.  If no FILE or if FILE is `-', standard input is read.

       Mandatory or optional arguments to long options are mandatory or optional for short options too.

   Operation modes:
       --help display this help and exit

       --version
	      output version information and exit

       -E, --fatal-warnings
	      once: warnings become errors, twice: stop execution at first error

       -i, --interactive
	      unbuffer output, ignore interrupts

       -P, --prefix-builtins
	      force a `m4_' prefix to all builtins

       -Q, --quiet, --silent
	      suppress some warnings for builtins

       --warn-macro-sequence[=REGEXP]
	      warn if macro definition matches REGEXP,

	      default $({[^}]*}|[0-9][0-9]+)

   Preprocessor features:
       -D, --define=NAME[=VALUE]
	      define NAME as having VALUE, or empty

       -I, --include=DIRECTORY
	      append DIRECTORY to include path

       -s, --synclines
	      generate `#line NUM "FILE"' lines

       -U, --undefine=NAME
	      undefine NAME

   Limits control:
       -g, --gnu
	      override -G to re-enable GNU extensions

       -G, --traditional
	      suppress all GNU extensions

       -H, --hashsize=PRIME
	      set symbol lookup hash table size [509]

       -L, --nesting-limit=NUMBER
	      change nesting limit, 0 for unlimited [0]

   Frozen state files:
       -F, --freeze-state=FILE
	      produce a frozen state on FILE at end

       -R, --reload-state=FILE
	      reload a frozen state from FILE at start

   Debugging:
       -d, --debug[=FLAGS]
	      set debug level (no FLAGS implies `aeq')

       --debugfile[=FILE]
	      redirect debug and trace output to FILE (default stderr, discard if empty string)

       -l, --arglength=NUM
	      restrict macro tracing size

       -t, --trace=NAME
	      trace NAME when it is defined

   FLAGS is any of:
       a      show actual arguments

       c      show before collect, after collect and after call

       e      show expansion

       f      say current input file name

       i      show changes in input files

       l      say current input line number

       p      show results of path searches

       q      quote values as necessary, with a or e flag

       t      trace for all macro calls, not only traceon'ed

       x      add a unique macro call id, useful with c flag

       V      shorthand for all of the above flags

       If defined, the environment variable `M4PATH' is a colon-separated list of directories included after any specified by `-I'.

       Exit status is 0 for success, 1 for failure, 63 for frozen file version mismatch, or whatever value was passed to the m4exit macro.

AUTHOR

       Written by Rene' Seindal.

REPORTING BUGS

       Report bugs to: bug-m4@gnu.org
       GNU M4 home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/m4/>
       General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (C) 2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
       This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.  There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO

       The full documentation for m4 is maintained as a Texinfo manual.  If the info and m4 programs are properly installed at your site, the com-
       mand

	      info m4

       should give you access to the complete manual.

GNU M4 1.4.16							    March 2011								     M4(1)