soelim(1) — Linux manual page

Name | Synopsis | Description | Options | See also | COLOPHON

soelim(1)                General Commands Manual               soelim(1)

Name         top

       soelim - recursively interpolate source requests in roff or other
       text files

Synopsis         top

       soelim [-Crt] [-I dir] [input-file ...]

       soelim --help

       soelim -v

       soelim --version

Description         top

       GNU soelim is a preprocessor for the groff(7) document formatting
       system.  soelim works as a filter to eliminate source requests in
       roff(7) input files; that is, it replaces lines of the form “.so
       included-file” within each text input-file with the contents of
       included-file, recursively.  By default, it writes lf requests as
       well to record the name and line number of each input-file and
       included-file, so that any diagnostics produced by later
       processing can be accurately traced to the original input.
       Options allow this information to be suppressed (-r) or supplied
       in TeX comments instead (-t).  In the absence of input-file
       arguments, soelim reads the standard input stream.  The program
       writes to the standard output stream.

       If the name of a included-file contains a backslash, use \\ or \e
       to embed it.  To embed a space, write “\ ” (backslash followed by
       a space).  Any other escape sequence in included-file, including
       “\[rs]”, prevents soelim from replacing the source request.

       The dot must be at the beginning of a line and must be followed
       by “so” without intervening spaces or tabs for soelim to handle
       it.  This convention allows source requests to be “protected”
       from processing by soelim, for instance as part of macro
       definitions or “if” requests.

       There must also be at least one space between “so” and its
       included-file argument.  The -C option overrides this
       requirement.

       The foregoing is the limit of soelim's understanding of the roff
       language; it does not, for example, replace the input line
              .if 1 .so otherfile
       with the contents of otherfile.  With its -r option, therefore,
       soelim can be used to process text files in general, to flatten a
       tree of input documents.

       soelim was designed to handle situations where the target of a
       roff source request requires a preprocessor such as eqn(1),
       pic(1), refer(1), or tbl(1).  The usual processing sequence of
       groff(1) is as follows.

                 input        sourced
                 file          file
                   ⎪             ⎪
                   ↓             ↓
               preprocessor ⎯→ troff ⎯→ postprocessor
                                             ⎪
                                             ↓
                                          output
                                           file

       That is, files sourced with “so” are normally read only by the
       formatter, troff.  soelim is not required for troff to source
       files.

       If a file to be sourced should also be preprocessed, it must
       already be read before the input file passes through the
       preprocessor.  soelim, normally invoked via groff's -s option,
       handles this.

                 input
                 file
                   ⎪
                   ↓
                 soelim ⎯→ preprocessor ⎯→ troff ⎯→ postprocessor
                   ↑                                     ⎪
                   ⎪                                     ↓
                sourced                               output
                 file                                  file

Options         top

       --help displays a usage message, while -v and --version show
       version information; all exit afterward.

       -C     Recognize an input line starting with .so even if a
              character other than a space or newline follows.

       -I dir Search the directory dir for input- and included-files.
              If specified more than once, each dir is searched in the
              given order.  To search the current working directory
              before others, add “-I .” at the desired place; it is
              otherwise searched last.

       -r     Write files “raw”; do not add lf requests.

       -t     Emit TeX comment lines starting with “%” indicating the
              current file and line number, rather than lf requests for
              the same purpose.

       If both -r and -t are given, the last one specified controls.

See also         top

       groff(1)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the groff (GNU troff) project.  Information
       about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/⟩.  If you have a bug report
       for this manual page, see ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/⟩.
       This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/groff.git⟩ on 2024-06-14.  (At
       that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
       the repository was 2024-06-10.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

groff 1.23.0.1273-9d53-dirty   6 June 2024                     soelim(1)