soelim(1) — Linux manual page

Name | Synopsis | Description | Options | Exit status | 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 eliminates source requests in roff(7) and other
       text files; that is, it replaces lines of the form “.so included-
       file” within each text input-file with the contents of included-
       file recursively, flattening a tree of documents.  By default, it
       writes roff 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.

       soelim reads the included-file argument as GNU troff does.  It
       ignores spaces immediately after “so”; to embed a sequence of one
       or more leading spaces in the argument, prefix the sequence with a
       neutral double quote (").  Non-leading spaces are interpreted
       literally.  A backslash followed by a space (“\ ”) also encodes a
       space, for compatibility with earlier versions of GNU soelim.  If
       the included file name requires a backslash, use \\ or \e to embed
       it.  Any other escape sequence in included-file, including
       “\[rs]”, prevents soelim from replacing the source request.  AT&T
       and descendant versions of soelim have no means of embedding
       spaces in file names; they replace the first space encountered
       with a newline and stop interpreting the 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.

       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(1).  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 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.

Exit status         top

       soelim exits with status 0 on successful operation, status 2 if
       the program cannot interpret its command-line arguments, and
       status 1 if it encounters an error during operation.

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 2025-02-02.  (At
       that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
       the repository was 2025-01-28.)  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 1.23.0.2722-658f-dirty    2025-01-02                      soelim(1)