M4(1) User Commands M4(1)
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 com-
mand
info M4
should give you access to the complete manual.
M4 1.4.5 July 2006 M4(1)
