lexgrog(1)

NAME

   lexgrog - parse header information in man pages

SYNOPSIS

   lexgrog [-m|-c] [-dfw?V] [-E encoding] file ...

DESCRIPTION

   lexgrog  is  an implementation of the traditional "groff guess" utility
   in lex.  It reads the list of files on its command line as  either  man
   page  source files or preformatted "cat" pages, and displays their name
   and  description  as  used  by  apropos  and  whatis,   the   list   of
   preprocessing  filters  required by the man page before it is passed to
   nroff or troff, or both.

   If its input is badly formatted, lexgrog  will  print  "parse  failed";
   this  may  be useful for external programs that need to check man pages
   for correctness.  If one of lexgrog's input files is "-", it will  read
   from  standard  input;  if any input file is compressed, a decompressed
   version will be read automatically.

OPTIONS

   -d, --debug
          Print debugging information.

   -m, --man
          Parse input as man page source files.  This is  the  default  if
          neither --man nor --cat is given.

   -c, --cat
          Parse  input as preformatted man pages ("cat pages").  --man and
          --cat may not be given simultaneously.

   -w, --whatis
          Display the name and description from the man page's header,  as
          used  by  apropos  and  whatis.   This is the default if neither
          --whatis nor --filters is given.

   -f, --filters
          Display the list of filters needed to preprocess  the  man  page
          before formatting with nroff or troff.

   -E encoding, --encoding encoding
          Override the guessed character set for the page to encoding.

   -?, --help
          Print a help message and exit.

   --usage
          Print a short usage message and exit.

   -V, --version
          Display version information.

EXIT STATUS

   0      Successful program execution.

   1      Usage error.

   2      lexgrog failed to parse one or more of its input files.

EXAMPLES

     $ lexgrog man.1
     man.1: "man - an interface to the on-line reference manuals"
     $ lexgrog -fw man.1
     man.1 (t): "man - an interface to the on-line reference manuals"
     $ lexgrog -c whatis.cat1
     whatis.cat1: "whatis - display manual page descriptions"
     $ lexgrog broken.1
     broken.1: parse failed

WHATIS PARSING

   mandb  (which uses the same code as lexgrog) parses the NAME section at
   the top of each manual page looking for names and descriptions  of  the
   features documented in each.  While the parser is quite tolerant, as it
   has to cope with a number of different  forms  that  have  historically
   been used, it may sometimes fail to extract the required information.

   When  using the traditional man macro set, a correct NAME section looks
   something like this:

          .SH NAME
          foo \- program to do something

   Some manual pagers require the '\-' to be exactly as  shown;  mandb  is
   more   tolerant,  but  for  compatibility  with  other  systems  it  is
   nevertheless a good idea to retain the backslash.

   On the left-hand side, there may be several names, separated by commas.
   Names  containing  whitespace  will  be  ignored  to avoid pathological
   behaviour on certain ill-formed NAME sections.  The text on the  right-
   hand  side  is  free-form,  and  may be spread over multiple lines.  If
   several features with different descriptions are  being  documented  in
   the same manual page, the following form is therefore used:

          .SH NAME
          foo, bar \- programs to do something
          .br
          baz \- program to do nothing

   (A macro which starts a new paragraph, like .PP, may be used instead of
   the break macro .br.)

   When using the BSD-derived mdoc macro set, a correct NAME section looks
   something like this:

          .Sh NAME
          .Nm foo
          .Nd program to do something

   There  are  several common reasons why whatis parsing fails.  Sometimes
   authors of manual pages replace '.SH NAME' with  '.SH  MYPROGRAM',  and
   then   mandb  cannot  find  the  section  from  which  to  extract  the
   information it needs.  Sometimes authors include a  NAME  section,  but
   place free-form text there rather than 'name \- description'.  However,
   any syntax resembling the above should be accepted.

SEE ALSO

   apropos(1), man(1), whatis(1), mandb(8)

NOTES

   lexgrog attempts to parse files containing .so requests, but will  only
   be  able  to  do  so correctly if the files are properly installed in a
   manual page hierarchy.

AUTHOR

   The code used by lexgrog to scan man pages was written by:

   Wilf. (G.Wilford@ee.surrey.ac.uk).
   Fabrizio Polacco (fpolacco@debian.org).
   Colin Watson (cjwatson@debian.org).

   Colin Watson wrote the current incarnation of the  command-line  front-
   end, as well as this man page.

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