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# m4 - Unix, Linux Command

# NAME

M4 - manual page for M4 1.4.5

# SYNOPSIS

m4 [OPTION]... [FILE]...

# DESCRIPTION

Mandatory or optional arguments to long options are mandatory or optional for short options too.

## Operation modes:

Tag | Description
--- | ---
--help | display this help and exit
--version
| output version information and exit
-E, --fatal-warnings
| stop execution after first warning
-e, --interactive
| unbuffer output, ignore interrupts
-P, --prefix-builtins
| force a ‘m4_’ prefix to all builtins
-Q, --quiet, --silent
| suppress some warnings for builtins

## Preprocessor features:

Tag | Description
--- | ---
-D, --define=NAME[=VALUE]
| enter NAME has having VALUE, or empty
-I, --include=DIRECTORY
| append this directory to include path
-s, --synclines
| generate ‘#line NO "FILE"’ lines
-U, --undefine=NAME
| delete builtin NAME

## Limits control:

Tag | Description
--- | ---
-G, --traditional
| suppress all GNU extensions
-H, --hashsize=PRIME
| set symbol lookup hash table size [509]
-L, --nesting-limit=NUMBER
| change artificial nesting limit [1024]

## Frozen state files:

Tag | Description
--- | ---
-F, --freeze-state=FILE
| produce a frozen state on FILE at end
-R, --reload-state=FILE
| reload a frozen state from FILE at start

## Debugging:

Tag | Description
--- | ---
-d, --debug[=FLAGS]
| set debug level (no FLAGS implies ‘aeq’)
-l, --arglength=NUM
| restrict macro tracing size
-o, --error-output=FILE
| redirect debug and trace output
-t, --trace=NAME
| trace NAME when it will be defined

## FLAGS is any of:

Tag | Description
--- | ---
a | show actual arguments
c | show before collect, after collect and after call
e | show expansion
f | say current input file name
i | show changes in input files
l | say current input line number
p | show results of path searches
q | quote values as necessary, with a or e flag
t | trace for all macro calls, not only traceon’ed
V | shorthand for all of the other flags
x | add a unique macro call id, useful with c flag

If defined, the environment variable ‘M4PATH’ is a colon-separated list of directories included after any specified by ‘-I’.

If no FILE or if FILE is ‘-’, standard input is read.

Exit status is 0 for success, 1 for failure, or whatever value was passed to the m4exit macro.

# AUTHOR

Written by Rene’ Seindal.

# COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

# SEE ALSO

M4 is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and M4 programs are properly installed at your site, the command

Tag | Description
--- | ---
| info M4

should give you access to the complete manual.

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