CAWF

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: February, 1991
Index Return to Main Contents

NAME

cawf - C version of the nroff-like, Amazingly Workable (text) Formatter

SYNOPSIS

cawf [ -fb|e|i ] [ -macros ] [ file ... ]

DESCRIPTION

Cawf formats the text from the input file(s) (standard input if none) in an approximation of nroff. It comes closest to duplicating nroff's man or ms macro package styles.

OPTIONS

Options must precede file names.

-fb: specifies that backspace and underline sequences are to be used to emulate bold and italic characters. This is cawf's default mode.
-fe: specifies that ESC, followed by `B' is to be used to precede each bold character; and ESC, followed by `I', each italic character.
: This option is normally used with a post-filter that converts the ESC sequences into device-specific controls - e. g., fontfilt(1).
-fn: specifies that no special character sequences are to be used to represent bold or italic characters.
-macro: specifies the macro file to be used. The standard cawf distribution supplies macro files to support `-man' or `-ms'. Cawf finds a macro file by constructing its name from `m', acro and .mac - e. g., -man is converted to man.mac. The default directory for macro files is defined when cawf is compiled; it's c:\sys\lib\cawf in the cawf MS-DOS distribution.
file ...: are the names of files containing nroff source text.

NROFF COMPATIBILITY

Cawf accepts the following raw nroff requests:

       .\"     .ad     .bp     .br     .ce     .de     .di     .ds
        .el     .fi     .ft     .i0     .ie     .if     .in     .it
        .lg     .li     .ll     .ls     .na     .ne     .nf     .nr
        .ns     .pl     .po     .ps     .rm     .rr     .rs     .so
        .sp     .ta     .ti     .tm     .tr

and the following in-text codes: \$ \% \* \c \f \h \k \n \s \w

plus the full list of nroff/troff special characters in the original V7 troff manual.

Many restrictions are present; the behavior in general is a subset of nroff's. Of particular note are the following:

*: Point sizes do not exist; .ps is ignored.
: * Special vertical spacing - the .vs command included - is ignored.
: * Conditionals cover only numeric comparisons on \n(.$, string comparisons between a macro parameter and a literal, and n (always true) and t (always false).
: * The handling of strings is generally primitive.
*: Horizontal motion via \h must be supplied with a number register interpolation and must be positive - e. g., \w\n(NN, where the value in NN is >= 0.
*: The \k function is reliable only after TAB characters, so it is useful only for measuring table positions.
*: The .di command only turns output on and off - any macro name is ignored.
*: Expressions - e. g., .sp - are reasonably general, but the |, &, and : operators do not exist, there must be white space between the end of the nroff command and the beginning of the expression, and \w requires that quote (') be used as the delimiters. \w counts the characters inside the quotes and scales the result in ens, so that, for example, \w'\(bu' equals 4n, and \w'\(bu'/1n equals 4.
: * The only acceptable count for the .it command is one, and it is effective only with man or ms macros.
: * The default scaling factor is `v' for the .ne, .sp, and .pl raw nroff requests; it is `u' for .nr; and `n' for .in, .ll, .ls, .po, .ta and .ti. (A different scaling factor may be specified with a trailing character.)
: * Some obsolete or meaningless commands - .i0, .lg and .li - are silently ignored. White space at the beginning of lines, and embedded white space within lines is dealt with properly. Sentence terminators at ends of lines are understood to imply extra space afterward in filled lines. Tabs are implemented crudely and not exactly, although usually they work as expected. Hyphenation is done only at explicit hyphens, em-dashes, and nroff discretionary hyphens. Bolding and italicization are done with backspacing and overprinting.

MAN MACROS

The man macro set replicates the full V7 manual macros, plus a few semi-random oddballs. The full list is: .AT    .B      .BI     .BR     .BY     .DE     .DS     .DT     .HP     .I
.IB     .IP     .IR     .IX     .LP     .NB     .P      .PD     .PP     .RB
.RE     .RI     .RS     .SH     .SM     .TH     .TP     .UC

.BY and .NB each take a single string argument (respectively, an indication of authorship and a note about the status of the manual page) and arrange to place it in the page footer. .AT and .IX do nothing.

MS MACROS

The ms macro set is a substantial subset of the V7 manuscript macros. The macros are: .AB    .AE     .AI     .AU     .B      .CD     .DA     .DE     .DS     .I
.ID     .IP     .LD     .LG     .LP     .ND     .NH     .NL     .PP     .QE
.QP     .QS     .R      .RE     .RP     .RS     .SH     .SM     .TL     .TP
.UL     .UX

Size changes are recognized but ignored, as are .RP and .ND. .UL just prints its argument in italics. .DS/.DE does not do a keep, nor do any of the other macros that normally imply keeps.

The DY string variable is available. The PD, PI, and LL number registers exist and can be changed.

HEADERS AND FOOTERS

Cawf allows the placement of text into the five line header and footer sections from the LH, CH, RF, LF, CF, and RF string variables, via the control of the .^b command:

.^b fh 0   disables header string placement on the first page
.^b HF 1   enables header/footer string placement
.^b HF 0   disables header/footer string placement

There are appropriate .^b commands in the distribution man and ms macro files. (The ms macro file uses another .^b command, .^b NH, to enable numbered header processing.)

OUTPUT

The default output format supported by cawf, in its distributed form, is that appropriate to a dumb terminal, using overprinting for italics (via underlining) and bold. The nroff special characters are printed as some vague approximation (it's sometimes extremely vague) to their correct appearance.

Cawf's knowledge of the output device is established by a device file, which is read before the user's input. The search for it begins in cawf's library directory, under the name term.dev (where term is the value of the TERM environment variable). Failing to find that, cawf searches for dumb.dev. The device file uses special internal commands to set up resolution, special characters, fonts, etc., and more normal nroff commands to set up page length, etc.

Cawf has limited support for special forms of bold and italic characters. It is provided through the -fe option and post-filters - e. g., fontfilt(1). The -fe option causes cawf to precede each bold character with ESC and `B'; each italic character, ESC and `I'. The fontfilt post-filter converts these escape sequences into appropriate device control codes. (Fontfilt will also select a font (once).)

FILES

All files are located in c:/sys/lib/cawf (the author's MS-DOS environment default). This default can be overridden by the CAWFLIB environment variable, or changed in the source code. *.dev device-specific initialization
m*.mac macro package files

DIAGNOSTICS

Unlike nroff, cawf complains whenever it sees unknown commands and macros. All diagnostics appear on the standard error file.

HISTORY

Vic Abell of Purdue University <abe@mace.cc.purdue.edu> derived cawf from awf, ``the Amazingly Workable (text) Formatter'' that was written by Henry Spencer of the University of Toronto. The Toronto work was a supplement to the C News project. The Purdue effort was aimed at producing a C language version that would run on small systems, particularly MS-DOS ones.

The MS-DOS version of cawf has been compiled with version 2.5 of Microsoft's Quick-C compiler. It runs under the Mortis Kern Systems Toolkit KornShell, ksh(1), and COMMAND.COM.

BUGS

Nroff and troff mavens will have many complaints. Some may even represent bugs and not deliberate omissions.

Watch out for scaling factors - especially on commands like \w.

The overprinting required to create bold and italicized characters is tiresome on a slow printer. Use cawf's -fn option or the bsfilt(1) post-filter from this distribution to manage backspacing.

The printing of bold and italic characters is sometimes better handled by special printer codes. Use cawf's -fe option to produce output that can be easily filtered, and a post-filter, such as fontfilt(1), from this distribution to filter it.

Cawf has a small amount of built-in code for the man and ms macro packages, but none for any others.

The stacking for the .so command is limited.

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 07:24:24 GMT, March 28, 2025