1 This is a port of GNU Groff to DJGPP v2.03 or later.
2 Groff is the GNU version of document formatting tools related to
5 This README file describes how to build and install Groff on MS-DOS or
6 MS-Windows systems using the DJGPP port of GNU C/C++ compiler and
10 I. Installing the pre-compiled binary package
11 ------------------------------------------
13 1. Unzip the file groNNNb.zip (where NNN is the version number)
14 preserving the directory structure (-d switch to PKUNZIP) from
15 the main DJGPP installation directory. If you will use Groff
16 on Windows 9X or Windows2000, use an unzip program which
17 supports long filenames.
19 2. Groff binaries were configured so that they will look for their
20 standard directories under the directory pointed to by the
21 DJDIR environment variable, so it should work automatically if
22 you have DJGPP installed. If you don't have a standard DJGPP
23 installation, set the variable DJDIR to point to the directory
24 where you unzip Groff. In this latter case, you will need to
25 set additional environment variables:
27 GROFF_TMAC_PATH=%DJDIR%/share/groff/<version>/tmac:%DJDIR%/share/groff/site-tmac
28 GROFF_TYPESETTER=ascii
29 GROFF_FONT_PATH=%DJDIR%/share/groff/<version>/font
31 <version> is something like `1.16.1' or `1.17'.
33 In addition, you can set the variable GROFF_TMPDIR to point to
34 a directory where you want Groff to create temporary files it
35 needs for running its jobs (these files are automatically
36 deleted when Groff exits).
38 All of those variables are automatically set in the file
39 DJGPP.ENV that is part of the standard DJGPP distribution
40 djdevNNN.zip (where NNN is the DJGPP version number), so you
41 only need to set them manually if you don't have DJGPP
44 Note that the GROFF_TYPESETTER variable sets the default Groff
45 device to be `ascii', which is suitable for formatting man
46 pages to be viewed on the terminal. Use the -T switch to
47 generate output for other devices (e.g., -Tps for PostScript).
49 3. If your TMPDIR environment variable points to a RAM drive, you
50 might consider changing GROFF_TMPDIR to point to a directory on
51 a real disk drive, especially if you intend to generate
52 PostScript output, because RAM disks are typically small (2-3
53 MBytes) which might be not enough for formatting large
56 4. Read the docs. It comes as formatted manual pages called *.1,
57 *.5 and *.7 which unzip into your man/ subdirectory. You
58 can read them with a pager such as GNU Less (recommended, as
59 Less will use colors for bold and underlined text) or with
60 Info (which will remove the bold/underline attributes).
61 Another alternative is to use Emacs built-in man page reader;
62 the DJGPP FAQ lists other possibilities.
64 Beginning with version 1.15, Groff comes with an Info manual;
65 type "info -f groff" to read it. The Info manual is still
66 under construction, so some sections are empty.
68 If you want to add a Groff entry to the main Info menu in the
69 file DIR, chdir to the `info' subdirectory of the main Groff
70 installation directory and run this command:
72 install-info --dir-file=dir groff.info
74 After you do that, "info groff" will also work.
76 5. For those who only need Groff to format man pages and don't
77 like reading the docs, here's a minimal cookbook:
79 groff -man -s foo.1 > foo.man
81 where `foo.1' is the troff source of the man page and `foo.man'
82 is the formatted page. If you need to view the man page, say
85 groff -man -s foo.1 | less
87 You can also use the DJGPP clone of the Unix `man' command, in
88 which case `man' runs the above command for you automatically.
90 Here's how you print man pages on a PostScript printer:
92 groff -man -s -Tps foo.1 > prn
94 And this is for a LaserJet4 printer:
96 groff -man -s -Tlj4 foo.1 > prn
98 Printing the documents produced by Groff is possible either by
99 redirecting Groff's standard output to the local printer
100 device, like shown above, or by using the `-l' switch to Groff.
101 The latter possibility causes Groff to pipe its output to a
102 program whose name and arguments appear in the files named
103 `DESC' in each of the `devFOO' subdirectories of the
104 %DJDIR%/share/groff/<version>/font directory; for example, the
105 file devps/DESC is used by "groff -Tps". The relevant line in
106 these files begins with the word "print".
108 As configured, when invoked with the `-l' switch, Groff will
109 call `cat' (from GNU Textutils) to pipe its output to the
110 default printer device for -Tps, -Tlbp and -Tlj4 options, and
111 it will call `dvilj4' (from the dvljNNNb.zip package) for -Tdvi
112 option. If you don't have these programs installed, you can
113 edit the respective `DESC' files to replace these commands with
114 something else. The replacement program must be able to read
115 its standard input and send its output to whatever printer you
116 want. The "print" entry is assumed to be a shell command, so
117 it can use redirection, pipes, and other shell features.
119 Beginning with version 1.15, Groff can create HTML output, like
122 groff -man -s -Thtml foo.1 > foo.html
124 Producing HTML files sometimes requires Ghostscript to be
125 installed, and, for gif images, ppmquant and ppmtogif as well.
126 If you do not have these programs installed, Groff will print
127 an error message, and the produced file will have links which
128 will fail to resolve when you view it with a Web browser.
130 6. Some programs in the package are supplied as Unix shell
131 scripts. While it is relatively easy to write a DOS batch file
132 which will do the same, DOS doesn't allow to redirect input and
133 output of a batch file. Since Groff tools are meant to be
134 invoked in a pipe, the batch files are not very useful. The
135 batch files are included in the binary distribution
138 These scripts need the following utilities to run (in addition
139 to the Groff programs they invoke):
146 The `afmtodit' and `mmroff' utilities are Perl scripts, so you
147 will need a Perl port to run them.
149 All of these ports should be available from the DJGPP sites.
151 If you need to run these scripts and batch files, you have to
152 install the port of bash (or another Unix-like shell) and the
153 above-mentioned utilities called by the script. Alternatively,
154 just look inside the shell script and invoke the programs it
157 To run the scripts with redirection, invoke them via the shell,
158 like this: "sh mmroff > foo".
160 7. Note that Groff programs use floating point, so you will need
161 an FP emulator if your machine doesn't have an FPU. The binary
162 distribution includes the emulator, in case you don't have the
163 DJGPP development environment installed. Please refer to the
164 DJGPP FAQ list in case you have any problems with the emulator.
166 8. The package does not include the directories under
167 share/groff/<version>/font whose names begin with "devX": these
168 are needed on X-Windows for running the gxditview program, which
169 is not supported by this port.
171 9. Due to 8+3 limitations of DOS filesystems, several files were
174 - groff_mdoc.samples.7 was renamed to groff-mdoc_samples.7
175 and groff_mmse.7 to groff-mmse.7. The latter was also
176 converted from Latin-1 encoding to codepage 437.
180 II. Building Groff from sources
181 ---------------------------
183 1. To build Groff, you will need the following tools (the file
184 name in parentheses is what you need to download from one of
187 - Standard DJGPP development environment (djdev203.zip)
188 - GNU C compiler (gcc2721b.zip)
189 - GNU C++ compiler (gpp2721b.zip)
190 - GNU Make 3.79 (mak379b.zip)
191 - Bash v2.03 (bsh203b.zip)
192 - Fileutils 3.16 (fil316b.zip)
193 - Textutils 2.0 (txt20b.zip)
194 - Sh-utils 1.12 (shl112b.zip)
195 - Sed 3.02 (sed302b.zip)
196 - Gawk 3.04 (gwk304b.zip)
197 - Grep 2.4 (grep24b.zip)
198 - Bison (only if you change one of the *.y files)
200 Note that you don't need to install libg++ (lgpNNNb.zip) since
201 Groff doesn't use any C++ classes except its own.
203 Any versions of the utilities later than what's mentioned above
204 should also do; in particular, GCC 2.95.2 was tested and Groff
205 built okay with it. Versions older than in the above list
206 might also work, but I don't guarantee that; you are on your
209 Special considerations apply if you have GCC 2.8.1 installed,
210 and cannot upgrade to a later version. See paragraph 4 below.
212 After you install these tools, make sure you have a ``symlink''
213 to bash.exe called sh.exe and a ``symlink'' to gawk.exe called
214 awk.exe. If not, go to the DJGPP bin/ subdirectory and type
215 the following words of wisdom from the DOS prompt:
217 ln -s bash.exe sh.exe
218 ln -s gawk.exe awk.exe
220 (`ln' is part of GNU Fileutils, see above.)
222 2. Unzip the source distribution groXYZs.zip (where XYZ is the
223 version number) preserving the directory structure (-d switch
224 to PKUNZIP) from the main DJGPP installation directory. (If
225 you are building Groff on Windows 9X or Windows 2000, use an
226 unzip program which supports long filenames.) This creates
227 directory gnu/groff-X.YZ and unzips the sources there.
229 If you are building from the official GNU distribution, unpack
230 the .tar.gz archive like this:
232 djtar -x groff-X.YZ.tar.gz
234 (DJTAR is part of the standard DJGPP development distribution.)
236 3. Groff sources on DJGPP sites are already configured for the
237 current version of DJGPP. If that is the version you have,
238 then you can just chdir to gnu/groff-X.YZ and say "make" to
239 build the entire package (if you have GCC 2.8.1, see the next
242 If you have version of DJGPP other than the current one, or if
243 you build the official GNU distribution, or if you prefer to
244 configure the package so that it defaults to the directory
245 structure on your machine, or need to change some options
246 (e.g., compile with different optimization options), you will
247 have to reconfigure Groff. To this end, use the CONFIG.BAT
248 batch file in the DJGPP subdirectory:
252 You can configure and build Groff from outside its source
253 directory. In that case, you need to pass the full path to the
254 source directory as an argument to CONFIG.BAT, like this:
256 d:\gnu\groff-1.16\arch\djgpp\config d:/gnu/groff-1.16
258 Note that you MUST use forward slashes in the path you pass to
259 CONFIG.BAT, or else it may fail. (For versions of Groff other
260 than 1.16, change the above command accordingly.)
262 4. If your version of GCC is 2.8.1, you cannot build the
263 preconfigured package without some tinkering. The DJGPP port
264 of GCC 2.8.1 had a bug in its C++ configuration, whereby the
265 file _G_config.h erroneously indicated that the header
266 <sys/socket.h> is available, and also undefined the symbol
267 NULL. This causes several files in the Groff distribution to
270 The easiest way to solve this is to upgrade to a later version
271 of GCC; then you can simply say "make" to build the
272 preconfigured package. If this is not an option, you will have
273 to edit the file lang/cxx/_G_config.h and change this line:
275 #define _G_HAVE_SYS_SOCKET 1
279 #define _G_HAVE_SYS_SOCKET 0
281 The problem with redefining NULL should not happen with DJGPP
282 v2.03 or later. But if you still see compilation errors which
283 say "`NULL' undeclared", comment out the line in _G_config.h
288 Alternatively, you can reconfigure the package as described in
289 the previous paragraph, before building it.
291 5. After the configure script exits, say "make" to build Groff.
292 Groff is a large package, and it might take a few minutes to
293 build, depending on your CPU, so you might as well go for a
294 coffee while it grinds away.
296 6. Test the package that you have built. A batch file T-GROFF.BAT
297 in the DJGPP subdirectory is supplied for that purpose. Most
298 of the commands there are commented out, since I cannot
299 possibly know what kind of printer do you have and which
300 additional programs, such as Less, do you have installed. The
301 only command that runs by default will format a large document
302 and print it to the screen. Read the comments in the batch
303 file, uncomment additional lines as you see fit and run the
304 batch file to see that you get the document printed as you'd
305 expect. (Btw, the document that the batch file prints is an
306 introduction to the entire Groff package, so you might as well
307 read it to make yourself familiar with the programs.)
309 Note that the batch file sets a lot of environment variables;
310 if you get ``Out of environment space'' messages, launch a
311 subsidiary COMMAND.COM with plenty of environment space, like
316 then invoke T-GROFF.BAT from that COMMAND.COM.
318 7. Install the package by typing "make install". This will copy
319 all the binaries, the auxiliary files (fonts, macros, etc.) and
320 the docs into their places. If you configured the package for
321 your system, these are precisely the directories where the
322 files should remain (with the exception of the man pages, see
323 below). If you use the default configuration, the files will
324 be installed under the top DJGPP installation directory.
326 Alternatively, you could instruct Make explicitly where to
327 install the package by setting the `prefix' variable. For
330 make install prefix=c:/groff
332 "make install" doesn't format the man pages, it just copies
333 them into subdirectories of the %DJDIR%\MAN directory. If you
334 need to keep formatted pages in your man/ subdirectory, you
335 will need to format them. Use the commands shown in chapter I,
336 section 5 above to do that, and redirect its output to the
337 appropriate catN subdirectory. Alternatively, you could format
338 the pages when you need to view them (the DJGPP clone of `man'
339 will automatically format them).
341 Consult the installation instructions for pre-compiled binaries
342 above, for more info about installing and using Groff.
344 8. You can safely delete the directories under
345 share/groff/<version>/font whose names begin with "devX": these
346 are needed on X-Windows which is not supported by this port.