Manual Reference Pages - topic (1)

NAME

topic(1) - [HELP] Display specially formatted help text files.

Synopsis
Description
Options
Examples
Dependencies
Author
License

SYNOPSIS

topic [TOPIC | -t| -e SEARCH_STRING] [ -f INPUT_FILE]]|[ -all| -topics| -summaries] ((LICENSE:PD))

DESCRIPTION

This utility program is used to read topics from a specially formatted help text file. It is often called from a program as a subprocess.
start at the beginning of the description file and read until the desired topic is reached; then display help until another topic begins
format of file is
      TOPIC:topic
      TOPIC:other optional topic line(s)
      syntax line(s) (assumed not to exist if first letter of topic is uppercase)

      detailed topic description for commands displayed as-is until a new TOPIC:
      line is encountered.

      and then repeat starting with TOPIC: line
         :
         :
         :
EXAMPLE FILE:
      TOPIC:COLORS

      The color-related commands background(1) and foreground(1) are
      used to define plot page colors

      TOPIC: background
      background -name color

         This command sets the background color
TOPIC: foreground foreground -name color
         This command sets the foreground color

OPTIONS

TOPIC

The name of the topic to get help for

o	if topic is ? show all topic lines topics all in caps go on new line display other topics three to a line in a table, like:

           #--------------------------------------------------------------------#
           | INTRO                                                              |
           #--------------------------------------------------------------------#
           | STARTING UP USH                                                    |
           | SUMMARY of basic USH |                                             |
           #--------------------------------------------------------------------#
           | COMMANDS                                                           |
           | novice               | aspect               | attach               |
           | dirf                 | exact                | f                    |
           #--------------------------------------------------------------------#
           | CALCULATOR                                                         |
           | ANSI functions       | String functions     | Bessel functions     |
           | Operators            | intg()               | dif()                |
           | convert()            |                                             |
           #--------------------------------------------------------------------#
           | CHANGE REQUEST                                                     |
           | version2 changes     | version3 changes     | version3.02 changes  |
           | version4 changes     | V4 Obsolete Usage    | version5 changes     |
           |                      |                                             |
           #--------------------------------------------------------------------#

o	if topic is ?? show all topic lines and syntax lines
o	if topic is ??? show all lines

-all

list entire help file

-topics

list topics found in help file

-summaries

list summaries for each topic

-t SEARCH_STRING

find topics that contain the specified string.

-e REGULAR_EXPRESSION

find topics that contain the specified regular expression

-f INPUT_FILE

Set the filename to read descriptions from. The default input file is the value of the environment variable $USHHELP if it is set. The built-in default is /usr/share/ush/help.txt

EXAMPLES

topic -topics | more
# show all topic names

topic -summaries | more
# Show all topics and short abstracts

topic -all | more
# display entire help file

DEPENDENCIES

o M_strings(3f)

o M_regexp(3f)

o M_kracken(3f)

AUTHOR

John S. Urban

LICENSE

Public Domain

topic (1)

March 11, 2021

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