m4(1) - Linux man page

Name

M4 - manual page for M4 1.4.5

Synopsis

m4 [OPTION]... [FILE]...

Description

Mandatory or optional arguments to long options are mandatory or optional for short options too.

Operation modes:

--help
display this help and exit
--version
output version information and exit
-E, --fatal-warnings
stop execution after first warning
-e, --interactive
unbuffer output, ignore interrupts
-P, --prefix-builtins
force a 'm4_' prefix to all builtins
-Q, --quiet, --silent
suppress some warnings for builtins

Preprocessor features:

-D, --define=NAME[=VALUE]
enter NAME has having VALUE, or empty
-I, --include=DIRECTORY
append this directory to include path
-s, --synclines
generate '#line NO "FILE"' lines
-U, --undefine=NAME
delete builtin NAME

Limits control:

-G, --traditional
suppress all GNU extensions
-H, --hashsize=PRIME
set symbol lookup hash table size [509]
-L, --nesting-limit=NUMBER
change artificial nesting limit [1024]

Frozen state files:

-F, --freeze-state=FILE
produce a frozen state on FILE at end
-R, --reload-state=FILE
reload a frozen state from FILE at start

Debugging:

-d, --debug[=FLAGS]
set debug level (no FLAGS implies 'aeq')
-l, --arglength=NUM
restrict macro tracing size
-o, --error-output=FILE
redirect debug and trace output
-t, --trace=NAME
trace NAME when it will be defined

FLAGS is any of:

a
show actual arguments
c
show before collect, after collect and after call
e
show expansion
f
say current input file name
i
show changes in input files
l
say current input line number
p
show results of path searches
q
quote values as necessary, with a or e flag
t
trace for all macro calls, not only traceon'ed
V
shorthand for all of the other flags
x
add a unique macro call id, useful with c flag

If defined, the environment variable 'M4PATH' is a colon-separated list of directories included after any specified by '-I'.

If no FILE or if FILE is '-', standard input is read.

Exit status is 0 for success, 1 for failure, or whatever value was passed to the m4exit macro.

Author

Written by Rene' Seindal.

Copyright

Copyright © 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

See Also

The full documentation for M4 is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and M4 programs are properly installed at your site, the command
info M4

should give you access to the complete manual.

Referenced By

colorit(1), gjots2html(1), milter-regex(8), suffixes(7)