M4(1)
NAME
m4 - macro processor
SYNOPSIS
m4 [OPTION]... [FILE]...
DESCRIPTION
Process macros in FILEs. If no FILE or if FILE is `-', standard input
is read.
- 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
once: warnings become errors, twice: stop execution at first error
- -i, --interactive
unbuffer output, ignore interrupts
- -P, --prefix-builtins
force a `m4_' prefix to all builtins
- -Q, --quiet, --silent
suppress some warnings for builtins
- --warn-macro-sequence[=REGEXP]
warn if macro definition matches REGEXP,default \$\({[^}]*}\|[0-9][0-9]+\)
- Preprocessor features:
- -D, --define=NAME[=VALUE]
define NAME as having VALUE, or empty
- -I, --include=DIRECTORY
append DIRECTORY to include path
- -s, --synclines
generate `#line NUM "FILE"' lines
- -U, --undefine=NAME
undefine NAME
- Limits control:
- -g, --gnu
override -G to re-enable GNU extensions
- -G, --traditional
suppress all GNU extensions
- -H, --hashsize=PRIME
set symbol lookup hash table size [509]
- -L, --nesting-limit=NUMBER
change nesting limit, 0 for unlimited [0]
- 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')
- --debugfile[=FILE]
redirect debug and trace output to FILE (default stderr, discard if empty string)
- -l, --arglength=NUM
restrict macro tracing size
- -t, --trace=NAME
trace NAME when it is 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
- x add a unique macro call id, useful with c flag
- V shorthand for all of the above flags
- If defined, the environment variable `M4PATH' is a colon-separated list of directories included after any specified by `-I'.
- Exit status is 0 for success, 1 for failure, 63 for frozen file version mismatch, or whatever value was passed to the m4exit macro.
AUTHOR
Written by Rene' Seindal.
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to: bug-m4@gnu.org GNU M4 home page:
<http://www.gnu.org/software/m4/> General help using GNU software:
<http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU
GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
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.