GRN(1) General Commands Manual GRN(1)
grn - groff preprocessor for gremlin files
grn [ -Cv ] [ -Tdev ] [ -Mdir ] [ -Fdir ] [ file... ]
grn is a preprocessor for including gremlin pictures in groff input.
grn writes to standard output, processing only input lines between
two that start with .GS and .GE. Those lines must contain grn
commands (see below). These commands request a gremlin file, and the
picture in that file is converted and placed in the troff input
stream. The .GS request may be followed by a C, L, or R to center,
left, or right justify the whole gremlin picture (default
justification is center). If no file is mentioned, the standard
input is read. At the end of the picture, the position on the page
is the bottom of the gremlin picture. If the grn entry is ended with
.GF instead of .GE, the position is left at the top of the picture.
Please note that currently only the -me macro package has support for
.GS, .GE, and .GF.
The following command-line options are understood:
-Tdev Prepare output for printer dev. The default device is ps.
See groff(1) for acceptable devices.
-Mdir Prepend dir to the default search path for gremlin files. The
default path is (in that order) the current directory, the
home directory, /usr/local/lib/groff/site-tmac,
/usr/local/share/groff/site-tmac, and
/usr/local/share/groff/1.22.3/tmac.
-Fdir Search dir for subdirectories devname (name is the name of the
device) for the DESC file before the default font directories
/usr/local/share/groff/site-font,
/usr/local/share/groff/1.22.3/font, and /usr/lib/font.
-C Recognize .GS and .GE (and .GF) even when followed by a
character other than space or newline.
-v Print the version number.
It is possible to have whitespace between a command line option and
its parameter.
Each input line between .GS and .GE may have one grn command.
Commands consist of one or two strings separated by white space, the
first string being the command and the second its operand. Commands
may be upper or lower case and abbreviated down to one character.
Commands that affect a picture's environment (those listed before
default, see below) are only in effect for the current picture: The
environment is reinitialized to the defaults at the start of the next
picture. The commands are as follows:
1 N
2 N
3 N
4 N Set gremlin's text size number 1 (2, 3, or 4) to N points.
The default is 12 (16, 24, and 36, respectively).
roman f
italics f
bold f
special f
Set the roman (italics, bold, or special) font to troff's font
f (either a name or number). The default is R (I, B, and S,
respectively).
l f
stipple f
Set the stipple font to troff's stipple font f (name or
number). The command stipple may be abbreviated down as far
as ‘st’ (to avoid confusion with special). There is no
default for stipples (unless one is set by the default
command), and it is invalid to include a gremlin picture with
polygons without specifying a stipple font.
x N
scale N
Magnify the picture (in addition to any default magnification)
by N, a floating point number larger than zero. The command
scale may be abbreviated down to ‘sc’.
narrow N
medium N
thick N
Set the thickness of gremlin's narrow (medium and thick,
respectively) lines to N times 0.15pt (this value can be
changed at compile time). The default is 1.0 (3.0 and 5.0,
respectively), which corresponds to 0.15pt (0.45pt and 0.75pt,
respectively). A thickness value of zero selects the smallest
available line thickness. Negative values cause the line
thickness to be proportional to the current point size.
pointscale <off/on>
Scale text to match the picture. Gremlin text is usually
printed in the point size specified with the commands 1, 2, 3,
or 4, regardless of any scaling factors in the picture.
Setting pointscale will cause the point sizes to scale with
the picture (within troff's limitations, of course). An
operand of anything but off will turn text scaling on.
default
Reset the picture environment defaults to the settings in the
current picture. This is meant to be used as a global
parameter setting mechanism at the beginning of the troff
input file, but can be used at any time to reset the default
settings.
width N
Forces the picture to be N inches wide. This overrides any
scaling factors present in the same picture. ‘width 0’ is
ignored.
height N
Forces picture to be N inches high, overriding other scaling
factors. If both ‘width’ and ‘height’ are specified the
tighter constraint will determine the scale of the picture.
Height and width commands are not saved with a default
command. They will, however, affect point size scaling if
that option is set.
file name
Get picture from gremlin file name located the current
directory (or in the library directory; see the -M option
above). If two file commands are given, the second one
overrides the first. If name doesn't exist, an error message
is reported and processing continues from the .GE line.
Since grn is a preprocessor, it doesn't know about current indents,
point sizes, margins, number registers, etc. Consequently, no troff
input can be placed between the .GS and .GE requests. However,
gremlin text is now processed by troff, so anything valid in a single
line of troff input is valid in a line of gremlin text (barring ‘.’
directives at the beginning of a line). Thus, it is possible to have
equations within a gremlin figure by including in the gremlin file
eqn expressions enclosed by previously defined delimiters (e.g. $$).
When using grn along with other preprocessors, it is best to run tbl
before grn, pic, and/or ideal to avoid overworking tbl. Eqn should
always be run last.
A picture is considered an entity, but that doesn't stop troff from
trying to break it up if it falls off the end of a page. Placing the
picture between ‘keeps’ in -me macros will ensure proper placement.
grn uses troff's number registers g1 through g9 and sets registers g1
and g2 to the width and height of the gremlin figure (in device
units) before entering the .GS request (this is for those who want to
rewrite these macros).
There exist two distinct gremlin file formats, the original format
from the AED graphic terminal version, and the SUN or X11 version.
An extension to the SUN/X11 version allowing reference points with
negative coordinates is not compatible with the AED version. As long
as a gremlin file does not contain negative coordinates, either
format will be read correctly by either version of gremlin or grn.
The other difference to the SUN/X11 format is the use of names for
picture objects (e.g., POLYGON, CURVE) instead of numbers. Files
representing the same picture are shown in Table 1 in each format.
sungremlinfile gremlinfile
0 240.00 128.00 0 240.00 128.00
CENTCENT 2
240.00 128.00 240.00 128.00
185.00 120.00 185.00 120.00
240.00 120.00 240.00 120.00
296.00 120.00 296.00 120.00
* -1.00 -1.00
2 3 2 3
10 A Triangle 10 A Triangle
POLYGON 6
224.00 416.00 224.00 416.00
96.00 160.00 96.00 160.00
384.00 160.00 384.00 160.00
* -1.00 -1.00
5 1 5 1
0 0
-1 -1
Table 1. File examples
· The first line of each gremlin file contains either the string
gremlinfile (AED version) or sungremlinfile (SUN/X11)
· The second line of the file contains an orientation, and x and
y values for a positioning point, separated by spaces. The
orientation, either 0 or 1, is ignored by the SUN/X11 version.
0 means that gremlin will display things in horizontal format
(drawing area wider than it is tall, with menu across top). 1
means that gremlin will display things in vertical format
(drawing area taller than it is wide, with menu on left side).
x and y are floating point values giving a positioning point
to be used when this file is read into another file. The
stuff on this line really isn't all that important; a value of
“1 0.00 0.00” is suggested.
· The rest of the file consists of zero or more element
specifications. After the last element specification is a
line containing the string “-1”.
· Lines longer than 127 characters are chopped to this limit.
· The first line of each element contains a single decimal
number giving the type of the element (AED version) or its
ASCII name (SUN/X11 version). See Table 2.
gremlin File Format − Object Type Specification
AED Number SUN/X11 Name Description
0 BOTLEFT bottom-left-justified text
1 BOTRIGHT bottom-right-justified text
2 CENTCENT center-justified text
3 VECTOR vector
4 ARC arc
5 CURVE curve
6 POLYGON polygon
7 BSPLINE b-spline
8 BEZIER Bézier
10 TOPLEFT top-left-justified text
11 TOPCENT top-center-justified text
12 TOPRIGHT top-right-justified text
13 CENTLEFT left-center-justified text
14 CENTRIGHT right-center-justified text
15 BOTCENT bottom-center-justified text
Table 2.
Type Specifications in gremlin Files
· After the object type comes a variable number of lines, each
specifying a point used to display the element. Each line
contains an x-coordinate and a y-coordinate in floating point
format, separated by spaces. The list of points is terminated
by a line containing the string “-1.0 -1.0” (AED version) or a
single asterisk, “*” (SUN/X11 version).
· After the points comes a line containing two decimal values,
giving the brush and size for the element. The brush
determines the style in which things are drawn. For vectors,
arcs, and curves there are six valid brush values:
1 − thin dotted lines
2 − thin dot-dashed lines
3 − thick solid lines
4 − thin dashed lines
5 − thin solid lines
6 − medium solid lines
For polygons, one more value, 0, is valid. It specifies a
polygon with an invisible border. For text, the brush selects
a font as follows:
1 − roman (R font in groff)
2 − italics (I font in groff)
3 − bold (B font in groff)
4 − special (S font in groff)
If you're using grn to run your pictures through groff, the
font is really just a starting font: The text string can
contain formatting sequences like “\fI” or “\d” which may
change the font (as well as do many other things). For text,
the size field is a decimal value between 1 and 4. It selects
the size of the font in which the text will be drawn. For
polygons, this size field is interpreted as a stipple number
to fill the polygon with. The number is used to index into a
stipple font at print time.
· The last line of each element contains a decimal number and a
string of characters, separated by a single space. The number
is a count of the number of characters in the string. This
information is only used for text elements, and contains the
text string. There can be spaces inside the text. For arcs,
curves, and vectors, this line of the element contains the
string “0”.
gremlin was designed for AEDs, and its coordinates reflect the AED
coordinate space. For vertical pictures, x-values range 116 to 511,
and y-values from 0 to 483. For horizontal pictures, x-values range
from 0 to 511 and y-values range from 0 to 367. Although you needn't
absolutely stick to this range, you'get best results if you at least
stay in this vicinity. Also, point lists are terminated by a point
of (-1, -1), so you shouldn't ever use negative coordinates. gremlin
writes out coordinates using format “%f1.2”; it's probably a good
idea to use the same format if you want to modify the grn code.
There is no longer a restriction on the range of coordinates used to
create objects in the SUN/X11 version of gremlin. However, files
with negative coordinates will cause problems if displayed on the
AED.
/usr/local/share/groff/1.22.3/font/devname/DESC
Device description file for device name.
gremlin(1), groff(1), pic(1), ideal(1)
Copyright © 2000-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
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the original English.
David Slattengren and Barry Roitblat wrote the original Berkeley grn.
Daniel Senderowicz and Werner Lemberg modified it for groff.
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Groff Version 1.22.3 4 November 2014 GRN(1)
Pages that refer to this page: groff(1), grog(1), groff_filenames(7)