soelim(1) — Linux manual page
soelim(1) General Commands Manual soelim(1)
Name
soelim - recursively interpolate source requests in roff or other
text files
Synopsis
soelim [-Crt] [-I dir] [input-file ...]
soelim --help
soelim -v
soelim --version
Description
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
--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
groff(1)
COLOPHON
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
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