nroff (short for "new roff") is a

text-formatting Typesetting is the composition of text by means of arranging physical ''type'' (or ''sort'') in mechanical systems or ''glyphs'' in digital systems representing ''characters'' (letters and other symbols).Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random Ho ...

program Program, programme, programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program management, the process of managing several related projects * Time management * Program, a part of planning Arts and entertainment Audio * Progra ...

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

and

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

s. It produces output suitable for simple fixed-width

printers Printer may refer to: Technology * Printer (publishing), a person or a company * Printer (computing), a hardware device * Optical printer for motion picture films People * Nariman Printer ( fl. c. 1940), Indian journalist and activist * Jam ...

and

terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together * Terminal (telecommunication), a device communicating over a line * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output dev ...

windows. It is an integral part of the

help system, being used to format

man page A man page (short for manual page) is a form of software documentation usually found on a Unix or Unix-like operating system. Topics covered include computer programs (including library and system calls), formal standards and conventions, and ev ...

s for display. nroff and the related

troff troff (), short for "typesetter roff", is the major component of a document processing system developed by Bell Labs for the Unix operating system. troff and the related nroff were both developed from the original roff. While nroff was inten ...

were both developed from the original roff. While nroff was intended to produce output on terminals and line printers, troff was intended to produce output on

typesetting Typesetting is the composition of text by means of arranging physical ''type'' (or ''sort'') in mechanical systems or ''glyphs'' in digital systems representing ''characters'' (letters and other symbols).Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random Ho ...

systems. Both used the same underlying markup and a single source file could normally be used by nroff or troff without change.

History

nroff was written by

Joe Ossanna Joseph Frank Ossanna, Jr. (December 10, 1928 – November 28, 1977) was an electrical engineer and computer programmer who worked as a member of the technical staff at the Bell Labs, Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. He be ...

for

Version 2 Unix The term "Research Unix" refers to early versions of the Unix operating system for DEC PDP-7, PDP-11, VAX and Interdata 7/32 and 8/32 computers, developed in the Bell Labs Computing Sciences Research Center (CSRC). History The term ''Resear ...

, in

Assembly language In computer programming, assembly language (or assembler language, or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as Assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence be ...

and then ported to C. It was a descendant of the

RUNOFF Runoff, run-off or RUNOFF may refer to: * RUNOFF, the first computer text-formatting program * Runoff or run-off, another name for bleed, printing that lies beyond the edges to which a printed sheet is trimmed * Runoff or run-off, a stock market ...

program from CTSS, the first computerized text-formatting program, and is a predecessor of the Unix

document processing system. There is also a

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

version of nroff in the groff package.

Variants

The Minix operating system, among others, uses a clone of nroff called cawf by Vic Abell, based on awf, the Amazingly Workable Formatter designed in

awk AWK (''awk'') is a domain-specific language designed for text processing and typically used as a data extraction and reporting tool. Like sed and grep, it is a filter, and is a standard feature of most Unix-like operating systems. The AWK lang ...

Henry Spencer Henry Spencer (born 1955) is a Canadian computer programmer and space enthusiast. He wrote "regex", a widely used software library for regular expressions, and co-wrote C News, a Usenet server program. He also wrote ''The Ten Commandments for C ...

. These are not full replacements for the nroff/troff suite of tools, but are sufficient for display and printing of basic documents and

manual page A man page (short for manual page) is a form of software documentation usually found on a Unix or Unix-like operating system. Topics covered include computer programs (including library and system calls), formal standards and conventions, and ev ...

s. In addition, a simplified version of nroff is available in

Ratfor Ratfor (short for ''Rational Fortran'') is a programming language implemented as a preprocessor for Fortran 66. It provides modern control structures, unavailable in Fortran 66, to replace GOTOs and statement numbers. Features Ratfor provides ...

source code form as an example in the book ''Software Tools'' by

Brian Kernighan Brian Wilson Kernighan (; born 1942) is a Canadian computer scientist. He worked at Bell Labs and contributed to the development of Unix alongside Unix creators Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie. Kernighan's name became widely known through co-au ...

and

P. J. Plauger Phillip James (P.J. or Bill) Plauger (; born January 13, 1944, Petersburg, West Virginia) is an author, entrepreneur and computer programmer. He has written and co-written articles and books about programming style, software tools, and the C ...

References

External links

source code for Henry Spencer's AWF

nroff source code
in

Illumos Illumos (stylized as illumos) is a partly free and open-source Unix operating system. It is based on OpenSolaris, which was based on System V Release 4 (SVR4) and the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Illumos comprises a kernel, device ...

Explanation
by Bryan Cantrill Troff Assembly language software Markup languages Unix text processing utilities {{unix-stub

History

Variants

See also

References

External links