GROFF_FILENAMES(5) File Formats Manual GROFF_FILENAMES(5)
NAME
groff_filenames - filename extensions for roff and groff
DESCRIPTION
Since the evolution of roff in the 1970s, a whole bunch of filename ex-
tensions 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 <name>.<extension>[.<compression>].
Best-known are the compressor extensions .Z, .gz, and .bzip2. Rela-
tively 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 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 docu-
mented here.
Files written in the man language use the following extension: *.<sec-
tion>[<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.
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 man page sections, which stood for “local”, “new”,
and “old”, respectively.
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 tcl to
refer to the Tcl 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
Heidelberger tables, an alternative to the preprocessor tbl.
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
AUTHORS
This document was written by Bernd Warken ⟨groff-bernd.warken-72@
web.de⟩.
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 ⟨https://github.com/n-t-roff/
heirloom-doctools⟩. You can get this package with the shell command:
$ git clone https://github.com/n-t-roff/heirloom-doctools
groff 1.22.4 7 March 2023 GROFF_FILENAMES(5)
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