NAME

checknr — check nroff/troff files

SYNOPSIS

checknr

[-fs] [-a.x1.y1.x2.y2. ... .xn.yn] [-c.x1.x2.x3 ... .xn] file

DESCRIPTION

checknr checks a list of nroff(1) or troff(1) input files for certain kinds of errors involving mismatched opening and closing delimiters and unknown commands. If no files are specified, checknr checks the standard input.

Recognized options are:

-a

Add additional pairs of macros to the list of known macros. This must be followed by groups of six characters, each group defining a pair of macros. The six characters are a period, the first macro name, another period, and the second macro name. For example, to define a pair .BS and .ES, use ‘-a.BS.ES’.

-c

Define commands which would otherwise be complained about as undefined.

-f

Request checknr to ignore ‘\f’ font changes.

-s

Ignore ‘\s’ size changes.

Delimiters checked are:

1. Font changes using \fx ... \fP.
2. Size changes using \sx ... \s0.
3. Macros that come in open ... close forms, for example, the .TS and .TE macros which must always come in pairs.

checknr is intended for use on documents that are prepared with checknr in mind, much the same as lint(1). It expects a certain document writing style for ‘\f’ and ‘\s’ commands, in that each ‘\fx’ must be terminated with ‘\fP’ and each ‘\sx’ must be terminated with ‘\s0’. While it will work to directly go into the next font or explicitly specify the original font or point size, and many existing documents actually do this, such a practice will produce complaints from checknr. Since it is probably better to use the ‘\fP’ and ‘\s0’ forms anyway, you should think of this as a contribution to your document preparation style.

checknr knows about the ms(7) and me(7) macro packages, as well as the macros from mdoc(7).

DIAGNOSTICS

SEE ALSO

nroff(1), troff(1), mdoc(7), me(7), ms(7)

HISTORY

The checknr command appeared in 4.0BSD. Basic mdoc(7) support appeared in NetBSD 1.6.

BUGS

There is no way to define a 1 character macro name using -a.

Does not correctly recognize certain reasonable constructs, such as conditionals.

mdoc(7) macros that are not at the beginning of the line are not recognized. Among others, this results in too many ‘Unmatched Zz’ errors.