M4(1) User Commands 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]
-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: [email protected]
GNU M4 home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/m4/>
General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2011 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 per‐
mitted by law.
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