NAME
WML - Website META Language
VERSION
@WML_VERSION@
SYNOPSIS
wml [-I PATH] [-i PATH] [-D NAME=STR] [-D NAME~PATH] [-n] [-r] [-O
level] [-o [SLICETERM":"]PATH[@CHMODOPT]] [-P PATH] [-E PATH] [-t] [-p
STR] [-W STR] [-s] [-v [NUM]] [-q] [inputfile]
wml [-V [NUM]] [-h]
DESCRIPTION
This is the control program of the Website META Language (WML), a free
HTML generation toolkit for Unix, internally consisting of 9
independent languages.
The main idea of WML is a sequential filtering scheme where each
language provides one of 9 processing passes. So wml reads inputfile
(or from stdin if inputfile is a dash or completely missing), applies
passes 1-9 (or only the passes specified by -p) and finally produces
one or more outputfiles.
For more details on this processing scheme read the WML Introduction
under wml_intro(7) and the WML Tutorial under wml_tutorial(7).
OPTIONS
-I, --include=PATH
Adds a directory to the list of user include paths. Use this option
to set the runtime environment for pass 1. See wml_p1_ipp(3) for
more details.
-i, --includefile=PATH
Pre-loads a particular include file, i.e. virtually adds a
#include "PATH"
at the top of inputfile. Use this to automatically include default
user include files. If you want to include a systems include file
you have to surround the PATH with angle brackets, for instance use
‘‘"-i" "<foo/bar.wml>"’’ to include the file foo/bar.wml from the
system include area. Alternatively you can use the special syntax
‘‘"wml::foo::bar"’’ as with the "#use" directive.
-D, --define=NAME=STR
Defines a variable which can be interpolated in pass 1 (IPP) via
"$(NAME)", in pass 2 (mp4h) via <"get-var NAME">, in pass 3 (ePerl)
via "<:=$NAME:>" and in pass 4 (GNU m4) via "m4_NAME". A special
variant --define=NAME=UNDEF does the opposite, it deletes previous
definitions (which may be different than undefining these
variables, e.g. with system defined variables).
-D, --define=NAME~PATH
Similar to the above but defines a variable holding a pathname
which is autoadjusted (see below). It can be interpolated in the
same ways as the "NAME=STR" variant from above.
-n, --noshebang
This forces WML to ignore a possibly contained shebang line in
inputfile. This is usually used by WMk, because WMk already parsed
this line and supplied the options to WML.
-r, --norcfile
This forces WML to ignore all .wmlrc files.
-c, --nocd
When WML processes an input file from another directory, it jumps
into that directory before parsing .wmlrc files, and jump back to
current directory after. If this option is set, no directory
change is made and .wmlrc files are read reative to current working
directory.
-O, --optimize=NUM
This is the optimization option which is passed directly to pass 8
(htmlfix). It controls the amount of optimization/stripping which
is applied to the generated HTML markup code.
-o, --outputfile=SLICETERM:outputfile[@CHMODOPT]
This redirects the output to a file. Usually the whole file will be
send to stdout (same as "ALL:-"). You can use this option more than
once to output to more than one file while using the SLICETERM as a
set theory term of slices to determine which contents will be
included into each particular output file. The optional CHMODOPT
is intended for specifying options for a finally applied chmod
command. For instance use ‘‘"u+x"’’ to create a file with the
execution bit set (Apache’s XBitHack feature). See slice(1) for
more details.
-P, --prolog=PATH
Runs an prolog filter over the input file. This program receives
the data to act on as STDIN and has to produce the filtered data on
STDOUT.
-E, --epilog=PATH
Runs an epilogue program over the finally resulting output files.
Currently the following WML-specific programs are known: htmlinfo,
linklint, tidy and weblint. But you can specify any program which
is available in your "PATH". This program receives the file to act
on as its first command line argument. Notice that output is not
redirected to this file, so you have to use a wrapper or program
specific flags if you want to modify output files.
-t, --settime
This sets the modification time of all output files to the
modification time of intputfile plus 1 second. This is useful
because Webservers will generate "Last-Modified" headers and there
the editing time is more important than the generation time. The 1
second offset is for the dependencies of Makefiles.
-M, --depend[=OPTIONS]
Output a rule suitable for ‘make’ describing the dependencies of
each output file, as ‘gcc’ does. It has only sense when the -o
option is used. No processing is done except for the first pass.
The D flag option writes the rule to a dependency file. The name of
this file is obtained by replacing the suffix of the output file by
".d".
The M flag option deletes the system files from the list of
dependencies.
-p, --pass=STR
Specifies which of the passes described above are actually applied
under runtime. The argument STR is a comma-separated list of pass
numbers with one special case: You can write "X-Y" for all passes
"X...Y". When pass 9 is not part of STR the resulting output is
written to STDOUT. Default is the string ‘‘"1-9"’’.
-W, --passoption=NUM,STR
Set option STR for the pass NUM.
-s, --safe
This disables some Perl hacks inside WML which speedup processing
by reducing the forking overhead when running the various passes.
Without this option WML pre-compiles the passes 1,5,6,7,8 (which
are written in Perl!) into a different namespace of the currently
running Perl interpreter instead of running them externally via
"system()". The effect is that these programs are run from within
the same Perl interpreter thus saving five CPU- and time-intensive
"fork()"’s. The actual gain is between 2 and 4 seconds of
processing time. Although experience showed that it works great,
the theoretical problem still is, that this approach is somewhat
risky due to internal Perl variable conflicts.
Use this option to disable these speedups by forcing WML to use the
safe "fork()" approach.
-v, --verbose[=NUM]
This sets verbose mode (from 1 to 9) where some processing
information will be given on the console. Useful for debugging.
This option also gets passed to some of the filtering programs.
Default is no verbosity and just -v means -v1.
-q, --quiet
This sets quiet mode where the processing prop is no longer
displayed. Use this option when running wml as a batch job. This
option is automatically forced when inputfile is missing. Then WML
automatically reads from stdin in quiet mode.
-V, --version[=NUM]
Gives the version identification string and disclaimer (no NUM or
NUM >= 1), the WML build information (NUM >= 2) and the Perl build
information (NUM >= 3). Use this option to get a brief description
of your installed WML system, especially when reporting bugs to the
author.
-h, --help
Prints the usage summary page.
ENVIRONMENT
DEFINED VARIABLES
The following variables are always defined by wml under runtime and are
usually interpolated via <"get-var NAME"> inside Pass 2 and via $NAME
in Pass 3.
WML_SRC_DIRNAME
The current working directory from where wml was started. An
absolute Unix filesystem path.
WML_SRC_FILENAME
The name of the inputfile from the command line. Useful when
running wml on a bulk of files and includefiles have to determine
in which they are included.
WML_SRC_BASENAME
The basename of the inputfile, i.e. the "WML_SRC_FILENAME", but
with the extension already stripped.
WML_SRC_TIME
The last modification time of inputfile in "time()" format. Useful
inside footers when customized date format is needed.
WML_SRC_CTIME
The last modification time of inputfile in "ctime()" format.
Useful inside footers include files.
WML_SRC_ISOTIME
The last modification time of inputfile in ISO "yyyy-mm-dd
hh:mm:ss" format. Useful inside footers include files.
WML_SRC_USERNAME
The Unix username of the user who own inputfile.
WML_SRC_REALNAME
The realname of the user who own inputfile.
WML_GEN_TIME
The current time of generation in "time()" format. Useful inside
footers when customized date format is needed.
WML_GEN_CTIME
The current time of generation in "ctime()" format. Useful inside
footers include files.
WML_GEN_ISOTIME
The current time of generation in ISO "yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss" format.
Useful inside footers include files.
WML_GEN_USERNAME
The Unix username of the user who runs the wml process.
WML_GEN_REALNAME
The realname of the user who runs the wml process.
WML_GEN_HOSTNAME
The name of the host on which the wml command runs.
WML_LOC_PREFIX
The location prefix where WML was installed to at built time.
WML_LOC_BINDIR
The directory where WML’s binaries were installed to at built time.
WML_LOC_LIBDIR
The directory where WML’s library files were installed to at built
time.
WML_LOC_DATADIR
The directory where WML’s data files were installed to at built
time.
WML_LOC_MANDIR
The directory where WML’s manual pages were installed to at built
time.
WML_VERSION
The version identification string of WML. Use this for instance in
HTML comments inside header includes to identify the generation
tools version.
USED VARIABLES
"WMLOPTS"
This variable can contain a string of options. Usually this is
used by Bourne-Shell users like
$ WMLOPTS="-DNAME1=VALUE2 -DNAME2=VALUE2"
$ export WMLOPTS
and by C-Shell users like
$ setenv WMLOPTS "-DNAME1=VALUE2 -DNAME2=VALUE2"
to make sure some variables are defined for all runs of wml.
"PAGER"
This variable contains the pager WML is to use. WML uses a pager
when called with the --verbose=NUM or -vNUM option respectively and
NUM is 3 or higher and therefore showing the processed data after
each pass. Default is ’more’.
"TMPDIR"
This variable contains the directory WML stores its temporary files
in. Default is ’/tmp’.
USER FILES
$HOME/.wmlrc and (../)*.wmlrc
These files can also contain option strings, one option per line.
Usually the contents is one or more -D options, especially auto-
adjusted ones:
-DROOTREL~.
-DROOTABS=http://thishost/thisarea/
:
-DNAME1=VALUE1
-DNAME2=VALUE2
:
STANDARD INCLUDE FILES
WML is shipped with a standard set of include files. You can directly
include them via
#use wml::category::name
and read their own documentation via
$ man wml::category::name
See wml::all(3) for a description of all available include files.
SPECIAL FEATURES
The WML control frontend provides a few special features on its own:
Shebang Line Support
WML recognizes a shebang line (‘‘"#!wml" options’’) in the .wml
files and automatically adds options to its command line. This line
is also used by WMk. Two special features in contrast to shebang
lines for the Unix loader are available: WML’s shebang line can be
continued via a backslash character and the constructs %DIR and
%<BASE> are interpolated (where %DIR is the path to the directory
the source while resides and %BASE is the filename of the source
file without any extension).
Example:
#!wml -o (ALL-LANG_*)+LANG_EN:%BASE.en.html \
-o (ALL-LANG_*)+LANG_DE:%BASE.de.html
Data Protection Container Tag
WML provides an own internal container tag named "<protect
[pass=SPEC]>"..."</protect>" which can be used to protect any type
of data from being processed by any WML pass. When no "pass"
attribute is given SPEC defaults to "1-9". When you use "pass" then
SPEC can be either "#-", "-#", "#-#" or a comma separated list of
passes, while "#" can be between 1 and 9.
Example:
<script language="JavaScript">
<protect pass=2>
...
output = "<PRE><DIV ALIGN=\"CENTER\"><B>" + help_string + "</B></DIV></PRE>"
...
</protect>
</script>
Warning:
Since WML 2.0.3, pass 1 includes extra stuff to help keeping
information about line numbers relevant (a la cpp). So when
writing
<protect pass=2>
#include 'foo'
</protect>
these extra commands will not be interpreted during pass 2 and will
remain on output. To suppress them, either compile with "-W1,-N"
flag, or write
<protect pass=2>
#include 'foo' IPP_NOSYNCLINES
</protect>
AUTHORS
Ralf S. Engelschall
rse@engelschall.com
www.engelschall.com
Denis Barbier
barbier@engelschall.com
SEE ALSO
wmd(1), wml_faq(7), wml_intro(7), wml_tutorial(7), wml_tags(7),
wml::all(3).