spec - Local Sector 7 web page

Miscellaneousgethelp(topic) — Formats and displays the help file with the name topic to fit thecurrent screen size (as defined by the built-in variables ROWS and COLS ). Theargument topic is a string constant or expression. If topic is a path namecontaining the / character, that is the path name used for locating the file.Otherwise, the file must be in the subdirectory help of spec’s auxiliary filedirectory, given by the global variable SPECD . The function returns nonzero ifthe file could not be opened.spec will also read a file named SPECD/help/.links that contains a list of helptopics and file names. If a file corresponding to topic is listed in .links, thatfile will be displayed.Normally, the help file is displayed one screenful at a time. At the end of eachpage, the user may type , , y or Y to see the next page, b togo back a page or anything else to return to the spec prompt.If the variable PAGER is set, the command therein is executed with the formattedhelp file as input. Typically, PAGER is set to a pagination utility such as themore or less programs.The help file contents are only written to the screen or display window and notto any other turned on output files or devices.The syntax recognized by spec’s built-in formatting uses the conventions ofthe traditional UNIX text formatters (nroff, troff, ditroff, etc.), although only asmall subset of the formatting directives are supported. Those are describedbelow.The spec distribution includes utilities for preparing both PostScript andHTML (hyper text mark-up language) versions of the help files using eitherthe standard ditroff or the GNU groff packages.Input text that has a dot on the first line is a formatting command. Unrecognizedformatting commands are ignored. Acommand such as .if t ... canbe used to insert commands to be executed only when the help files are beingprinted with troff,etc., as the .if is not recognized by spec.The following commands are supported:.\" — Begins a comment. The rest of the text on the line is ignored..bp — Begins a new page..BP — Same as above..ne N — Indicates N lines are needed on the current page. If there isn’tenough room on the current page, a new page is started.70 REFERENCE MANUAL INTERIM WORK-IN-PROGRESS (8/16/01) NOT FOR GENERAL DISTRIBUTION