m4(1)
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M4(1) NetBSD General Commands Manual M4(1)
NAME
m4 -- macro language processor
SYNOPSIS
m4 [-Pg] [-Dname[=value]] [-I dirname] [-Uname] [-d flags] [-o trfile]
[-t name]
DESCRIPTION
The m4 utility is a macro processor that can be used as a front end to
any language (e.g., C, ratfor, fortran, lex, and yacc). m4 reads from
the standard input and writes the processed text to the standard output.
Macro calls have the form name(argument1[, argument2, ..., argumentN]).
There cannot be any space following the macro name and the open parenthe-
sis ((`'). If the macro name is not followed by an open parenthesis it
is processed with no arguments.
Macro names consist of a leading alphabetic or underscore possibly fol-
lowed by alphanumeric or underscore characters, e.g., valid macro names
match the pattern ``[a-zA-Z_][a-zA-Z0-9_]*''.
In arguments to macros, leading unquoted space, tab, and newline (`\n')
characters are ignored. To quote strings, use left and right single
quotes (e.g., ` this is a string with a leading space'). You can change
the quote characters with the changequote built-in macro.
Most built-ins don't make any sense without arguments, and hence are not
recognized as special when not followed by an open parenthesis.
The options are as follows:
-Dname[=value] Define the symbol name to have some value (or NULL).
-I dirname Add directory dirname to the include path.
-P Prefixes all m4 builtin macros with the string
``m4_''. This changes the macro names ``dnl'' to
``m4_dnl'', ``index'' to ``m4_index'', and so forth.
-Uname Undefine the symbol name.
-d flags Set trace flags. flags may hold the following:
a print macro arguments.
c print macro expansion over several lines.
e print result of macro expansion.
f print filename location.
l print line number.
q quote arguments and expansion with the current
quotes.
t start with all macros traced.
x number macro expansions.
V turn on all options.
By default, trace is set to "eq".
-g Activate GNU-m4 compatibility mode. In this mode,
changequote with two empty parameters deactivates
quotes, translit handles simple character ranges
(e.g., a-z), regular expressions mimic emacs behavior,
and the number of diversions is unlimited.
-o trfile Specify the tracing output file for -t; tracing
defaults to printing to stderr.
-t macro Turn tracing on for macro.
SYNTAX
m4 provides the following built-in macros. They may be redefined, losing
their original meaning. Return values are null unless otherwise stated.
builtin Calls a built-in by its name, overriding possible redefi-
nitions.
changecom Change the start and end comment sequences. The default
is the pound sign (`#') and the newline character. With
no arguments comments are turned off. The maximum length
for a comment marker is five characters.
changequote Defines the quote symbols to be the first and second
arguments. The symbols may be up to five characters
long. If no arguments are given it restores the default
open and close single quotes.
decr Decrements the argument by 1. The argument must be a
valid numeric string.
define Define a new macro named by the first argument to have
the value of the second argument. Each occurrence of
``$n'' (where n is 0 through 9) is replaced by the n'th
argument. ``$0'' is the name of the calling macro.
Undefined arguments are replaced by a null string.
``$#'' is replaced by the number of arguments; ``$*'' is
replaced by all arguments comma separated; ``$@'' is the
same as ``$*'' but all arguments are quoted against fur-
ther expansion.
defn Returns the quoted definition for each argument. This
can be used to rename macro definitions (even for built-
in macros).
divert There are 10 output queues (numbered 0-9). At the end of
processing m4 concatenates all the queues in numerical
order to produce the final output. Initially the output
queue is 0. The divert macro allows you to select a new
output queue (an invalid argument passed to divert causes
output to be discarded).
divnum Returns the current output queue number.
dnl Discard input characters up to and including the next
newline.
dumpdef Prints the names and definitions for the named items, or
for everything if no arguments are passed.
errprint Prints the first argument on the standard error output
stream.
esyscmd Pass its first argument to a shell and returns the
shell's standard output. Note that the shell shares its
standard input and standard error with m4.
eval Computes the first argument as an arithmetic expression
using 32-bit arithmetic. Operators are the standard C
ternary, arithmetic, logical, shift, relational, bitwise,
and parentheses operators. You can specify octal, deci-
mal, and hexadecimal numbers as in C. The second argu-
ment (if any) specifies the radix for the result and the
third argument (if any) specifies the minimum number of
digits in the result.
expr This is an alias for eval.
ifdef If the macro named by the first argument is defined then
return the second argument, otherwise the third. If
there is no third argument, the value is NULL. The word
"unix" is predefined.
ifelse If the first argument matches the second argument then
ifelse returns the third argument. If the match fails
the three arguments are discarded and the next three
arguments are used until there is zero or one arguments
left, either this last argument or NULL is returned if no
other matches were found.
include Returns the contents of the file specified in the first
argument. If the file is not found as is, look through
the include path: first the directories specified with -I
on the command line, then the environment variable
M4PATH, as a colon-separated list of directories.
Include aborts with an error message if the file cannot
be included.
incr Increments the argument by 1. The argument must be a
valid numeric string.
index Returns the index of the second argument in the first
argument (e.g., index(the quick brown fox jumped, fox)
returns 16). If the second argument is not found index
returns -1.
indir Indirectly calls the macro whose name is passed as the
first arguments, with the remaining arguments passed as
first, ... arguments.
len Returns the number of characters in the first argument.
Extra arguments are ignored.
m4exit Immediately exits with the return value specified by the
first argument, 0 if none.
m4wrap Allows you to define what happens at the final EOF, usu-
ally for cleanup purposes (e.g.,
m4wrap("cleanup(tempfile)") causes the macro cleanup to
be invoked after all other processing is done).
maketemp Translates the string ``XXXXX'' in the first argument
with the current process ID leaving other characters
alone. This can be used to create unique temporary file
names.
paste Includes the contents of the file specified by the first
argument without any macro processing. Aborts with an
error message if the file cannot be included.
patsubst Substitutes a regular expression in a string with a
replacement string. Usual substitution patterns apply:
an ampersand (`&') is replaced by the string matching the
regular expression. The string ``\#'', where `#' is a
digit, is replaced by the corresponding back-reference.
popdef Restores the pushdefed definition for each argument.
pushdef Takes the same arguments as define, but it saves the def-
inition on a stack for later retrieval by popdef.
regexp Finds a regular expression in a string. If no further
arguments are given, it returns the first match position
or -1 if no match. If a third argument is provided, it
returns the replacement string, with sub-patterns
replaced.
shift Returns all but the first argument, the remaining argu-
ments are quoted and pushed back with commas in between.
The quoting nullifies the effect of the extra scan that
will subsequently be performed.
sinclude Similar to include, except it ignores any errors.
spaste Similar to paste, except it ignores any errors.
substr Returns a substring of the first argument starting at the
offset specified by the second argument and the length
specified by the third argument. If no third argument is
present it returns the rest of the string.
syscmd Passes the first argument to the shell. Nothing is
returned.
sysval Returns the return value from the last syscmd.
traceon Enables tracing of macro expansions for the given argu-
ments, or for all macros if no argument is given.
traceoff Disables tracing of macro expansions for the given argu-
ments, or for all macros if no argument is given.
translit Transliterate the characters in the first argument from
the set given by the second argument to the set given by
the third. You cannot use tr(1) style abbreviations.
undefine Removes the definition for the macro specified by the
first argument.
undivert Flushes the named output queues (or all queues if no
arguments).
unix A pre-defined macro for testing the OS platform.
__line__ Returns the current file's line number.
__file__ Returns the current file's name.
STANDARDS
The m4 utility is expected to be a superset of the X/Open Commands and
Utilities Issue 5 (``XCU5'') specification, and includes some extensions
also present in GNU m4.
The -s option (cpp(1)'s #line directives) is currently not supported.
Flags -I, -d, -t are non-standard.
The output format of tracing and of dumpdef are not specified in any
standard, are likely to change and should not be relied upon. The cur-
rent format of tracing is closely modelled on GNU m4, to allow autoconf
to work.
For portability, one should not use the macros builtin, esycmd, expr,
indir, paste, patsubst, regexp, spaste, unix, __line__, __file__.
All builtins do expand without arguments in many other m4.
AUTHORS
Ozan Yigit <oz@sis.yorku.ca> and Richard A. O'Keefe (ok@cs.rmit.edu.au).
GNU-m4 compatibility extensions by Marc Espie <espie@cvs.openbsd.org>.
NetBSD 4.0 January 26, 1993 NetBSD 4.0
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