Right; I'm finally sick of typing \q{\cw{foo}}, so I've invented a

[sgt/halibut] / doc / input.but

\C{input} Halibut input format

This chapter describes the format in which you should write
documents to be processed by Halibut.

\H{input-basics} The basics

Halibut's input files mostly look like ordinary ASCII text files;
you can edit them with any text editor you like.

Writing \i{paragraphs of ordinary text} is very simple: you just
write ordinary text in the ordinary way. You can wrap a paragraph
across more than one line using \i{line breaks} in the text file,
and Halibut will ignore this when it \I{wrapping paragraphs}rewraps
the paragraph for each output format. To separate paragraphs, use a
\i{blank line} (i.e. two consecutive line breaks). For example, a
fragment of Halibut input looking like this:

\c This is a line of text.
\c This is another line of text.
\c
\c This line is separated from the previous one by a blank line.

will produce two paragraphs looking like this:

\quote{
This is a line of text.
This is another line of text.

This line is separated from the previous one by a blank line.
}

The first two lines of the input have been merged together into a
single paragraph, and the line break in the input file was treated
identically to the spaces between the individual words.

Halibut is designed to have very few \I{escaping, special
characters}\i{special characters}. The only printable characters in
Halibut input which will not be treated exactly literally in the
output are the \i{backslash} (\c{\\}) and the \i{braces} (\c{\{} and
\c{\}}). If you do not use these characters, \e{everything} else you
might type in normal ASCII text is perfectly safe. If you do need to
use any of those three characters in your document, you will have to
precede each one with a backslash. Hence, for example, you could
write

\c This \\ is a backslash, and these are \{braces\}.

and Halibut would generate the text

\quote{
This \\ is a backslash, and these are \{braces\}.
}

If you want to write your input file in a character set other than
ASCII, you can do so by using the \c{\\cfg\{input-charset\}}
command. See \k{input-config} for details of this.

\H{input-inline} Simple \i{inline formatting commands}

Halibut formatting commands all begin with a backslash, followed by
a word or character identifying the command. Some of them then use
braces to surround one or more pieces of text acted on by the
command. (In fact, the \c{\\\\}, \c{\\\{} and \c{\\\}} sequences you
met in \k{input-basics} are themselves formatting commands.)

This section describes some simple formatting commands you can use
in Halibut documents. The commands in this section are \e{inline}
commands, which means you can use them in the middle of a paragraph.
\K{input-para} describes some \e{paragraph} commands, which affect a
whole paragraph at a time.

Many of these commands are followed by a pair of braces surrounding
some text. In all cases, it is perfectly safe to have a \i{line break}
(in the input file) within those braces; Halibut will treat that
exactly the same as a space. For example, these two paragraphs will
be treated identically:

\c Here is some \e{emphasised
\c text}.
\c
\c Here is some \e{emphasised text}.

\S{input-emph} \c{\\e}: Emphasising text

Possibly the most obvious piece of formatting you might want
to use in a document is \i\e{emphasis}.
To emphasise text, you use the \i\c{\\e} command, and follow it up
with the text to be emphasised in braces. For example, the first
sentence in this paragraph was generated using the Halibut input

\c Possibly the most obvious piece of formatting you might want
\c to use in a document is \e{emphasis}.

\S{input-code} \c{\\c} and \c{\\cw}: Displaying \i{computer code} inline

Halibut was primarily designed to produce software manuals. It can
be used for other types of document as well, but software manuals
are its speciality.

In software manuals, you often want to format text in a way that
indicates that it is something you might see displayed \i{verbatim}
on a computer screen. In printed manuals, this is typically done by
setting that text in a font which is obviously \I{fixed-width
font}fixed-width. This provides a visual cue that the text being
displayed is code, and it also ensures that punctuation marks are
clearly separated and shown individually (so that a user can copy
the text accurately and conveniently).

Halibut provides \e{two} commands for this, which are subtly
different. The names of those commands are \i\c{\\c} (\q{code}) and
\i\c{\\cw} (\q{\i{weak code}}). You use them just like \c{\\e}, by
following them with some text in braces. For example, this...

\c This sentence contains some \c{code} and some \cw{weak code}.

... produces this:

\quote{
This sentence contains some \c{code} and some \cw{weak code}.
}

The distinction between code and weak code is mainly important when
producing plain text output. Plain text output is typically viewed
in a fixed-width font, so there is no need (and no way) to change
font in order to make the order of punctuation marks clear. However,
marking text as code is also \e{sometimes} done to provide a visual
distinction between it and the text around it, so that the reader
knows where the literal computer text starts and stops; and in plain
text, this cannot be done by changing font, so there needs to be an
alternative way.

So in the plain text output format, things marked as code (\c{\\c})
will be surrounded by quote marks, so that it's obvious where they
start and finish. Things marked as weak code (\c{\\cw}) will not
look any different from normal text.

I recommend using weak code for any application where it is
\e{obvious} that the text is literal computer input or output. For
example, if the text is capitalised, that's usually good enough. If
I talk about the Pentium's \cw{EAX} and \cw{EDX} registers, for
example, you don't need quotes to notice that those are special; so
I would write that in Halibut as \cq{the Pentium's \\cw\{EAX\} and
\\cw\{EDX\} registers}. But if I'm talking about the Unix command
\c{man}, which is an ordinary English word in its own right, a reader
might be slightly confused if it appeared in the middle of a
sentence undecorated; so I would write that as \cq{the Unix command
\\c\{man\}}.

In summary:

\b \c{\\c} means \q{this text \e{must} be visually distinct from the
text around it}. Halibut's various output formats will do this by
changing the font if possible, or by using quotes if not.

\b \c{\\cw} means \q{it would be nice to display this text in a
fixed-width font if possible, but it's not essential}.

In really extreme cases, you might want Halibut to use \i{quotation
marks} even in output formats which can change font. In
\k{input-date}, for example, I mention the special formatting
command \cq{\\.}. If that appeared at the end of a sentence
\e{without} the quotes, then the two adjacent full stops would look
pretty strange even if they were obviously in different fonts.

For this, Halibut supports the \i\c{\\cq} command, which is exactly
equivalent to using \c{\\q} to provide quotes and then using
\c{\\cw} inside the quotes. So in the paragraph above, for example,
I wrote

\c the special formatting command \cq{\\.}.

and I could equivalently have written

\c the special formatting command \q{\cw{\\.}}.

There is a separate mechanism for displaying computer code in an
entire paragraph; see \k{input-codepara} for that one.

\S{input-quotes} \c{\\q}: \ii{Quotation marks}

Halibut's various output formats don't all use the same conventions
for displaying text in ordinary quotation marks (\q{like these}).
Some output formats have access to proper matched quote characters,
whereas others are restricted to using plain ASCII. Therefore, it is
not ideal to use the ordinary ASCII double quote character in your
document (although you can if you like).

Halibut provides the formatting command \i\c{\\q} to indicate quoted
text. If you write

\c Here is some \q{text in quotes}.

then Halibut will print

\quote{
Here is some \q{text in quotes}.
}

and in every output format Halibut generates, it will choose the
best quote characters available to it in that format. (The quote
characters to use can be configured with the \c{\\cfg} command.)

You can still use the ordinary quote characters of your choice if
you prefer; or you could even use the \c{\\u} command (see
\k{input-unicode}) to generate \i{Unicode matched quotes} (single or
double) in a way which will automatically fall back to the normal
ASCII one if they aren't available. But I recommend using the
built-in \c{\\q} command in most cases, because it's simple and does
the best it can everywhere.

If you're using the \c{\\c} or \c{\\cw} commands to display literal
computer code, you will probably want to use literal \i{ASCII quote
characters}, because it is likely to matter precisely which quote
character you use. In fact, Halibut actually \e{disallows} the use
of \c{\\q} within either of \c{\\c} and \c{\\cw}, since this
simplifies some of the output formats.

\S{input-nonbreaking} \c{\\-} and \c{\\_}: \ii{Non-breaking hyphens}
and \I{non-breaking spaces}spaces

If you use an ordinary hyphen in the middle of a word (such as
\q{built-in}), Halibut's output formats will feel free to break a
line after that hyphen when \i{wrapping paragraphs}. This is fine
for a word like \q{built-in}, but if you were displaying some
literal computer code such as the Emacs command
\c{M\-x\_psychoanalyze\-pinhead}, you might prefer to see the whole
hyphenated word treated as an unbreakable block. In some cases, you
might even want to prevent the \e{space} in that command from
becoming a line break.

For these purposes, Halibut provides the commands \i\c{\\-} and
\i\c{\\_}, which generate a non-breaking hyphen and a non-breaking
space respectively. So the above Emacs command might be written as

\c the Emacs command \c{M\-x\_psychoanalyze\-pinhead}

Unfortunately, some of Halibut's output formats do not support
non-breaking hyphens, and others don't support \e{breaking} hyphens!
So Halibut cannot promise to honour these commands in all situations.
All it can do is make a best effort.

\S{input-date} \c{\\date}: Automatic \i{date} generation

Sometimes you might want your document to give an up-to-date
indication of the date on which it was run through Halibut.

Halibut supplies the \i\c{\\date} command to do this. In its
simplest form, you simply say

\c This document was generated on \date.

and Halibut generates something like

\quote{
This document was generated on \date.
}

You can follow the \c{\\date} command directly with punctuation (as
in this example, where it is immediately followed by a full stop),
but if you try to follow it with an alphabetic or numeric character
(such as writing \c{\\dateZ}) then Halibut will assume you are
trying to invoke the name of a macro command you have defined
yourself, and will complain if no such command exists. To get round
this you can use the special \cq{\\.} do-nothing command. See
\k{input-macro} for more about general Halibut command syntax and
\cq{\\.}.

If you would prefer the date to be generated in a specific format,
you can follow the \c{\\date} command with a format specification in
braces. The format specification will be run through the standard C
function \i\c{strftime}, so any format acceptable to that function
is acceptable here as well. I won't document the format here,
because the details vary from computer to computer (although there
is a standard core which should be supported everywhere). You should
look at your local system's manual for \c{strftime} for details.

Here's an example which generates the date in the international
standard \i{ISO 8601} format:

\c This document was generated on \date{%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S}.

And here's some sample output from that command:

\quote{
This document was generated on \date{%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S}.
}

\S{input-weblink} \c{\\W}: \i{WWW hyperlinks}

Since one of Halibut's output formats is \i{HTML}, it's obviously
useful to be able to provide \I{linking to web sites}links to
arbitrary \i{web sites} in a Halibut document.

This is done using the \i\c{\\W} command. \c{\\W} expects to be
followed by \e{two} sets of braces. In the first set of braces you
put a \i{URL}; in the second set you put the text which should be a
\i{hyperlink}. For example, you might write

\c Try searching on \W{http://www.google.com/}{Google}.

and Halibut would generate

\quote{
Try searching on \W{http://www.google.com/}{Google}.
}

Note that hyperlinks, like the non-breaking commands discussed in
\k{input-nonbreaking}, are \e{discretionary}: if an output format
does not support them then they will just be left out completely. So
unless you're \e{only} intending to use the HTML output format, you
should avoid storing vital content in the URL part of a \c{\\W}
command. The Google example above is reasonable (because most users
are likely to be able to find Google for themselves even without a
convenient hyperlink leading straight there), but if you really need
to direct users to a specific web site, you will need to give the
URL in actual displayed text (probably displayed as code as well).
However, there's nothing to stop you making it a hyperlink \e{as
well} for the convenience of HTML readers.

The \c{\\W} command supports a piece of extra syntax to make this
convenient for you. You can specify \c{\\c} or \c{\\cw} \e{between}
the first and second pairs of braces. For example, you might write

\c Google is at \W{http://www.google.com/}\cw{www.google.com}.

and Halibut would produce

\quote{
Google is at \W{http://www.google.com/}\cw{www.google.com}.
}

If you want the link text to be an index term as well, you can also
specify \c{\\i} or \c{\\ii}; this has to come before \c{\\c} or
\c{\\cw} if both are present. (See \k{input-index} for more about
indexing.)

\S{input-unicode} \c{\\u}: Specifying arbitrary \i{Unicode}
characters

Halibut has extensive support for Unicode and character set
conversion. You can specify any (reasonably well known) \i{character
set} for your input document, and Halibut will convert it all to
Unicode as it reads it in. See \k{input-config} for more details of
this.

If you need to specify a Unicode character in your input document
which is not supported by the input character set you have chosen,
you can use the \i\c{\\u} command to do this. \c{\\u} expects to be
followed by a sequence of hex digits; so that \c{\\u0041}, for
example, denotes the Unicode character \cw{0x0041}, which is the
capital letter A.

If a Unicode character specified in this way is not supported in a
particular \e{output} format, you probably don't just want it to be
omitted. So you can put a pair of braces after the \c{\\u} command
containing \i{fallback text}. For example, to specify an amount of
money in euros, you might write this:

\c This is likely to cost \u20AC{EUR\_}2500 at least.

Halibut will render that as a Euro sign \e{if available}, and
the text \q{EUR\_} if not. In the output format you're currently
reading in, the above input generates this:

\quote{
This is likely to cost \u20AC{EUR\_}2500 at least.
}

If you read it in other formats, you may see different results.

\S{input-xref} \i\c{\\k} and \I{\\K-upper}\c{\\K}:
\ii{Cross-references} to other sections

\K{intro-features} mentions that Halibut \I{section numbers}numbers
the sections of your document automatically, and can generate
cross-references to them on request. \c{\\k} and \c{\\K} are the
commands used to generate those cross-references.

To use one of these commands, you simply follow it with a pair of
braces containing the keyword for the section in question. For
example, you might write something like

\c \K{input-xref} expands on \k{intro-features}.

and Halibut would generate something like

\quote{
\K{input-xref} expands on \k{intro-features}.
}

The \i{keywords} \c{input-xref} and \c{intro-features} are
\i{section keywords} used in this manual itself. In your own
document, you would have supplied a keyword for each one of your own
sections, and you would provide your own keywords for the \c{\\k}
command to work on.

The difference between \c{\\k} and \c{\\K} is simply that \c{\\K}
starts the cross-reference text with a capital letter; so you would
use \c{\\K} at the beginning of a sentence, and \c{\\k} everywhere
else.

In output formats which permit it, cross-references act as
\i{hyperlinks}, so that clicking the mouse on a cross-reference
takes you straight to the referenced section.

The \c{\\k} commands are also used for referring to entries in a
\i{bibliography} (see \k{input-biblio} for more about
bibliographies), and can also be used for referring to an element of
a \i{numbered list} by its number (see \k{input-list-number} for
more about numbered lists).

See \k{input-sections} for more about chapters and sections.

\S{input-inline-comment} \i\c{\\#}: Inline comments

If you want to include \i{comments} in your Halibut input, to be seen
when reading it directly but not copied into the output text, then
you can use \c{\\#} to do this. If you follow \c{\\#} with text in
braces, that text will be ignored by Halibut.

For example, you might write

\c The typical behaviour of an antelope \#{do I mean
\c gazelle?} is...

and Halibut will simply leave out the aside about gazelles, and will
generate nothing but

\quote{
The typical behaviour of an antelope \#{do I mean
gazelle?} is...
}

This command will respect nested braces, so you can use it to
comment out sections of Halibut markup:

\c This function is \#{very, \e{very}} important.

In this example, the comment lasts until the final closing brace (so
that the whole \q{very, \e{very}} section is commented out).

The \c{\\#} command can also be used to produce a whole-paragraph
comment; see \k{input-commentpara} for details of that.

\H{input-para} \ii{Paragraph-level commands}

This section describes Halibut commands which affect an entire
paragraph, or sometimes even \e{more} than one paragraph, at a time.

\S{input-codepara} \i\c{\\c}: Displaying whole \I{code
paragraphs}paragraphs of \i{computer code}

\K{input-code} describes a mechanism for displaying computer code in
the middle of a paragraph, a few words at a time.

However, this is often not enough. Often, in a computer manual, you
really want to show several lines of code in a \i{display
paragraph}.

This is also done using the \c{\\c} command, in a slightly different
way. Instead of using it in the middle of a paragraph followed by
braces, you can use it at the start of each line of a paragraph. For
example, you could write

\c \c #include <stdio.h>
\c \c
\c \c int main(int argc, char **argv) {
\c \c     printf("hello, world\n");
\c \c     return 0;
\c \c }

and Halibut would generate

\quote{

\c #include <stdio.h>
\c
\c int main(int argc, char **argv) {
\c     printf("hello, world\n");
\c     return 0;
\c }

}

Note that the above paragraph makes use of a backslash and a pair of
braces, and does \e{not} need to escape them in the way described in
\k{input-basics}. This is because code paragraphs formatted in this
way are a special case; the intention is that you can just copy and
paste a lump of code out of your program, put \cq{\\c } at the
start of every line, and simply \e{not have to worry} about the
details - you don't have to go through the whole block looking for
characters to escape.

Since a backslash inside a code paragraph generates a literal
backslash, this means you cannot use any other Halibut formatting
commands inside a code paragraph. In particular, if you want to
emphasise a particular word in the paragraph, you can't do that
using \c{\\e} (\k{input-emph}) in the normal way.

Therefore, Halibut provides an alternative means of \i{emphasis in
code paragraphs}. Each line beginning with \c{\\c} can optionally be
followed by a single line beginning with \c{\\e}, indicating the
emphasis in that line. The emphasis line contains the letters \c{b}
and \c{i} (for \q{bold} and \q{italic}, although some output formats
might render \c{i} as underlining instead of italics), positioned to
line up under the parts of the text that you want emphasised.

For example, if you wanted to do \i{syntax highlighting} on the
above C code by highlighting the preprocessor command in italic and
the keywords in bold, you might do it like this:

\c \c #include <stdio.h>
\c \e iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
\c \c
\c \c int main(int argc, char **argv) {
\c \e bbb      bbb       bbbb
\c \c     printf("hello, world\n");
\c \c     return 0;
\c \e     bbbbbb
\c \c }

and Halibut would generate:

\quote{

\c #include <stdio.h>
\e iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
\c
\c int main(int argc, char **argv) {
\e bbb      bbb       bbbb
\c     printf("hello, world\n");
\c     return 0;
\e     bbbbbb
\c }

}

Note that not every \c{\\c} line has to be followed by a \c{\\e}
line; they're optional.

Also, note that highlighting within a code paragraph is
\e{discretionary}. Not all of Halibut's output formats can support
it (plain text, in particular, has no sensible way to do it). Unless
you know you are using a restricted range of output formats, you
should use highlighting in code paragraphs \e{only} as a visual aid,
and not rely on it to convey any vital semantic content.

\S{input-lists} \c{\\b}, \c{\\n}, \c{\\dt}, \c{\\dd}, \c{\\lcont}:
\ii{Lists}

Halibut supports bulletted lists, numbered lists and description
lists.

\S2{input-list-bullet} \i\c{\\b}: \ii{Bulletted lists}

To create a bulletted list, you simply prefix each paragraph
describing a bullet point with the command \c{\\b}. For example, this
Halibut input:

\c Here's a list:
\c
\c \b One.
\c
\c \b Two.
\c
\c \b Three.

would produce this Halibut output:

\quote{
Here's a list:

\b One.

\b Two.

\b Three.
}

\S2{input-list-number} \i\c{\\n}: \ii{Numbered lists}

Numbered lists are just as simple: instead of \c{\\b}, you use
\c{\\n}, and Halibut takes care of getting the numbering right for
you. For example:

\c Here's a list:
\c
\c \n One.
\c
\c \n Two.
\c
\c \n Three.

This produces the Halibut output:

\quote{
Here's a list:

\n One.

\n Two.

\n Three.
}

The disadvantage of having Halibut sort out the list numbering for
you is that if you need to refer to a list item by its number, you
can't reliably know the number in advance (because if you later add
another item at the start of the list, the numbers will all change).
To get round this, Halibut allows an optional keyword in braces
after the \c{\\n} command. This keyword can then be referenced using
the \c{\\k} or \c{\\K} command (see \k{input-xref}) to provide the
number of the list item. For example:

\c Here's a list:
\c
\c \n One.
\c
\c \n{this-one} Two.
\c
\c \n Three.
\c
\c \n Now go back to step \k{this-one}.

This produces the following output:

\quote{
Here's a list:

\n One.

\n{this-one} Two.

\n Three.

\n Now go back to step \k{this-one}.
}

The keyword you supply after \c{\\n} is allowed to contain escaped
special characters (\c{\\\\}, \c{\\\{} and \c{\\\}}), but should not
contain any other Halibut markup. It is intended to be a word or two
of ordinary text. (This also applies to keywords used in other
commands, such as \c{\\B} and \c{\\C}).

\S2{input-list-description} \i\c{\\dt} and \i\c{\\dd}:
\ii{Description lists}

To write a description list, you prefix alternate paragraphs with
the \c{\\dt} (\q{described thing}) and \c{\\dd} (description)
commands. For example:

\c \dt Pelican
\c
\c \dd This is a large bird with a big beak.
\c
\c \dt Panda
\c
\c \dd This isn't.

This produces the following output:

\quote{

\dt Pelican

\dd This is a large bird with a big beak.

\dt Panda

\dd This isn't.

}

\S2{input-list-continuation} \ii{Continuing list items} into further
paragraphs

All three of the above list types assume that each list item is a
single paragraph. For a short, snappy list in which each item is
likely to be only one or two words, this is perfectly sufficient;
but occasionally you will find you want to include several
paragraphs in a single list item, or even to \I{nested lists}nest
other types of paragraph (such as code paragraphs, or other lists)
inside a list item.

To do this, you use the \i\c{\\lcont} command. This is a command
which can span \e{multiple} paragraphs.

After the first paragraph of a list item, include the text
\c{\\lcont\{}. This indicates that the subsequent paragraph(s) are a
\e{continuation} of the list item that has just been seen. So you
can include further paragraphs, and eventually include a closing
brace \c{\}} to finish the list continuation. After that, you can
either continue adding other items to the original list, or stop
immediately and return to writing normal paragraphs of text.

Here's a (long) example.

\c Here's a list:
\c
\c \n One. This item is followed by a code paragraph:
\c
\c \lcont{
\c
\c \c code
\c \c paragraph
\c
\c }
\c
\c \n Two. Now when I say \q{two}, I mean:
\c
\c \lcont{
\c
\c \n Two, part one.
\c
\c \n Two, part two.
\c
\c \n Two, part three.
\c
\c }
\c
\c \n Three.

The output produced by this fragment is:

\quote{

Here's a list:

\n One. This item is followed by a code paragraph:

\lcont{

\c code
\c paragraph

}

\n Two. Now when I say \q{two}, I mean:

\lcont{

\n Two, part one.

\n Two, part two.

\n Two, part three.

}

\n Three.

}

This syntax might seem a little bit inconvenient, and perhaps
counter-intuitive: you might expect the enclosing braces to have to
go around the \e{whole} list item, rather than everything except the
first paragraph.

\c{\\lcont} is a recent addition to the Halibut input language;
previously, \e{all} lists were required to use no more than one
paragraph per list item. So it's certainly true that this feature
looks like an afterthought because it \e{is} an afterthought, and
it's possible that if I'd been designing the language from scratch
with multiple-paragraph list items in mind, I would have made it
look different.

However, the advantage of doing it this way is that no enclosing
braces are required in the \e{common} case: simple lists with only
one paragraph per item are really, really easy to write. So I'm not
too unhappy with the way it turned out; it obeys the doctrine of
making simple things simple, and difficult things possible.

Note that \c{\\lcont} can only be used on \c{\\b}, \c{\\n} and
\c{\\dd} paragraphs; it cannot be used on \c{\\dt}.

\S{input-rule} \i\c{\\rule}: \ii{Horizontal rules}

The command \c{\\rule}, appearing on its own as a paragraph, will
cause a horizontal rule to be drawn, like this:

\c Some text.
\c
\c \rule
\c
\c Some more text.

This produces the following output:

\quote{

Some text.

\rule

Some more text.

}

\S{input-quote} \i\c{\\quote}: \ii{Indenting multiple paragraphs} as a
long \i{quotation}

Quoting verbatim text using a code paragraph (\k{input-codepara}) is
not always sufficient for your quoting needs. Sometimes you need to
quote some normally formatted text, possibly in multiple paragraphs.
This is similar to HTML's \i\cw{<BLOCKQUOTE>} command.

To do this, you can use the \c{\\quote} command. Like \c{\\lcont},
this is a command which expects to enclose at least one paragraph
and possibly more. Simply write \c{\\quote\{} at the beginning of
your quoted section, and \c{\}} at the end, and the paragraphs in
between will be formatted to indicate that they are a quotation.

(This very manual, in fact, uses this feature a lot: all of the
examples of Halibut input followed by Halibut output have the output
quoted using \c{\\quote}.)

Here's some example Halibut input:

\c In \q{Through the Looking Glass}, Lewis Carroll wrote:
\c
\c \quote{
\c
\c \q{The question is,} said Alice, \q{whether you \e{can} make
\c words mean so many different things.}
\c
\c \q{The question is,} said Humpty Dumpty, \q{who is to be
\c master - that's all.}
\c
\c }
\c
\c So now you know.

The output generated by this is:

\quote{

In \q{Through the Looking Glass}, Lewis Carroll wrote:

\quote{

\q{The question is,} said Alice, \q{whether you \e{can} make
words mean so many different things.}

\q{The question is,} said Humpty Dumpty, \q{who is to be
master - that's all.}

}

So now you know.

}

\S{input-sections} \I{\\C-upper}\c{\\C}, \i\c{\\H}, \i\c{\\S},
\i\c{\\A}, \I{\\U-upper}\c{\\U}: Chapter and \i{section headings}

\K{intro-features} mentions that Halibut \I{section
numbering}numbers the sections of your document automatically, and
can generate cross-references to them on request; \k{input-xref}
describes the \c{\\k} and \c{\\K} commands used to generate the
cross-references. This section describes the commands used to set up
the sections in the first place.

A paragraph beginning with the \c{\\C} command defines a chapter
heading. The \c{\\C} command expects to be followed by a pair of
braces containing a keyword for the chapter; this keyword can then
be used with the \c{\\k} and \c{\\K} commands to generate
cross-references to the chapter. After the closing brace, the rest
of the paragraph is used as the displayed chapter title. So the
heading for the current chapter of this manual, for example, is
written as

\c \C{input} Halibut input format

and this allows me to use the command \c{\\k\{input\}} to generate a
cross-reference to that chapter somewhere else.

The \I{keyword syntax}keyword you supply after one of these commands
is allowed to contain escaped special characters (\c{\\\\}, \c{\\\{}
and \c{\\\}}), but should not contain any other Halibut markup. It
is intended to be a word or two of ordinary text. (This also applies
to keywords used in other commands, such as \c{\\B} and \c{\\n}).

The next level down from \c{\\C} is \c{\\H}, for \q{heading}. This
is used in exactly the same way as \c{\\C}, but section headings
defined with \c{\\H} are considered to be part of a containing
chapter, and will be numbered with a pair of numbers. After \c{\\H}
comes \c{\\S}, and if necessary you can then move on to \c{\\S2},
\c{\\S3} and so on.

For example, here's a sequence of heading commands. Normally these
commands would be separated at least by blank lines (because each is
a separate paragraph), and probably also by body text; but for the
sake of brevity, both of those have been left out in this example.

\c \C{foo} Using Foo
\c \H{foo-intro} Introduction to Foo
\c \H{foo-running} Running the Foo program
\c \S{foo-inter} Running Foo interactively
\c \S{foo-batch} Running Foo in batch mode
\c \H{foo-trouble} Troubleshooting Foo
\c \C{bar} Using Bar instead of Foo

This would define two chapters with keywords \c{foo} and \c{bar},
which would end up being called Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 (unless
there were other chapters before them). The sections \c{foo-intro},
\c{foo-running} and \c{foo-trouble} would be referred to as Section
1.1, Section 1.2 and Section 1.3 respectively; the subsections
\c{foo-inter} and \c{foo-batch} would be Section 1.2.1 and Section
1.2.2. If there had been a \i\c{\\S2} command within one of those,
it would have been something like Section 1.2.1.1.

If you don't like the switch from \c{\\H} to \c{\\S}, you can use
\c{\\S1} as a synonym for \c{\\S} and \c{\\S0} as a synonym for
\c{\\H}. Chapters are still designated with \c{\\C}, because they
need to be distinguished from other types of chapter such as
appendices. (Personally, I like the \c{\\C},\c{\\H},\c{\\S} notation
because it encourages me to think of my document as a hard disk :-)

You can define an \i{appendix} by using \c{\\A} in place of \c{\\C}.
This is no different from a chapter except that it's given a letter
instead of a number, and cross-references to it will say \q{Appendix
A} instead of \q{Chapter 9}. Subsections of an appendix will be
numbered \q{A.1}, \q{A.2}, \q{A.2.1} and so on.

\I{renaming sections}If you want a particular section to be referred
to as something other than a \q{chapter}, \q{section} or
\q{appendix}, you can include a second pair of braces after the
keyword. For example, if you're \i{writing a FAQ} chapter and you
want cross-references between questions to refer to \q{question
1.2.3} instead of \q{section 1.2.3}, you can write each section
heading as

\c \S{question-about-fish}{Question} What about fish?

(The word \q{Question} should be given with an initial capital
letter. Halibut will lower-case it when you refer to it using
\c{\\k}, and will leave it alone if you use \c{\\K}.)

This technique allows you to change the designation of
\e{particular} sections. To make an overall change in what \e{every}
section is called, see \k{input-config}.

Finally, the \c{\\U} command defines an \I{unnumbered
chapter}\e{unnumbered} chapter. These sometimes occur in books, for
specialist purposes such as \q{Bibliography} or
\q{Acknowledgements}. \c{\\U} does not expect a keyword argument,
because there is no sensible way to generate an automatic
cross-reference to such a chapter anyway.

\S{input-blurb} \c{\\copyright}, \c{\\title}, \c{\\versionid}:
Miscellaneous \i{blurb commands}

These three commands define a variety of \i{special paragraph
types}. They are all used in the same way: you put the command at
the start of a paragraph, and then just follow it with normal text,
like this:

\c \title My First Manual

The three special paragraph types are:

\dt \i\cw{\\title}

\dd This defines the overall title of the entire document. This
title is treated specially in some output formats (for example, it's
used in a \cw{<title>} tag in the HTML output), so it needs a
special paragraph type to point it out.

\dt \i\cw{\\copyright}

\dd This command indicates that the paragraph attached to it
contains a \i{copyright statement} for the document. This text is
displayed inline where it appears, exactly like a normal paragraph;
but in some output formats it is given additional special treatment.
For example, Windows Help files have a standard slot in which to
store a copyright notice, so that other software can display it
prominently.

\dt \i\cw{\\versionid}

\dd This command indicates that the paragraph contains a version
identifier, such as those produced by CVS (of the form \c{$\#{hope this
defuses CVS}Id: thingy.but,v 1.6 2004/01/01 16:47:48 simon Exp $}).
This text will be tucked away somewhere unobtrusive, so that anyone
wanting to (for example) report errors to the document's author can
pick out the \i{version IDs} and send them as part of the report, so
that the author can tell at a glance which revision of the document
is being discussed.

\S{input-commentpara} \i\c{\\#}: Whole-paragraph \i{comments}

\K{input-inline-comment} describes the use of the \c{\\#} command to
put a short comment in the middle of a paragraph.

If you need to use a \e{long} comment, Halibut also allows you to
use \c{\\#} without braces, to indicate that an entire paragraph is
a comment, like this:

\c Here's a (fairly short) paragraph which will be displayed.
\c
\c \# Here's a comment paragraph which will not be displayed, no
\c matter how long it goes on. All I needed to indicate this was
\c the single \# at the start of the paragraph; I don't need one
\c on every line or anything like that.
\c
\c Here's another displayed paragraph.

When run through Halibut, this produces the following output:

\quote{

Here's a (fairly short) paragraph which will be displayed.

\# Here's a comment paragraph which will not be displayed, no
matter how long it goes on. All I needed to indicate this was
the single \# at the start of the paragraph; I don't need one
on every line or anything like that.

Here's another displayed paragraph.

}

\H{input-biblio} Creating a \i{bibliography}

If you need your document to refer to other documents (research
papers, books, websites, whatever), you might find a bibliography
feature useful.

You can define a bibliography entry using the \I{\\B-upper}\c{\\B}
command. This looks very like the \c{\\C} command and friends: it
expects a keyword in braces, followed by some text describing the
document being referred to. For example:

\c \B{freds-book} \q{The Taming Of The Mongoose}, by Fred Bloggs.
\c Published by Paperjam & Notoner, 1993.

If this bibliography entry appears in the finished document, it will
look something like this:

\quote{

\B{freds-book} \q{The Taming Of The Mongoose}, by Fred Bloggs.
Published by Paperjam & Notoner, 1993.

}

I say \q{if} above because not all bibliography entries defined
using the \c{\\B} command will necessarily appear in the finished
document. They only appear if they are \I{citation}referred to by a
\i\c{\\k} command (see \k{input-xref}). This allows you to (for
example) maintain a single Halibut source file with a centralised
database of \e{all} the references you have ever needed in any of
your writings, include that file in every document you feed to
Halibut, and have it only produce the bibliography entries you
actually need for each particular document. (In fact, you might even
want this centralised source file to be created automatically by,
say, a Perl script from BibTeX input, so that you can share the same
bibliography with users of other formatting software.)

If you really want a bibliography entry to appear in the document
even though no text explicitly refers to it, you can do that using
the \i\c{\\nocite} command:

\c \nocite{freds-book}

Normally, each bibliography entry will be referred to (in citations
and in the bibliography itself) by a simple reference number, such
as \k{freds-book}. If you would rather use an alternative reference
notation, such as [Fred1993], you can use the \i\c{\\BR}
(\q{Bibliography Rewrite}) command to specify your own reference
format for a particular book:

\c \BR{freds-book} [Fred1993]

The keyword you supply after \c{\\B} is allowed to contain escaped
special characters (\c{\\\\}, \c{\\\{} and \c{\\\}}), but should not
contain any other Halibut markup. It is intended to be a word or two
of ordinary text. (This also applies to keywords used in other
commands, such as \c{\\n} and \c{\\C}).

\H{input-index} Creating an \i{index}

Halibut contains a comprehensive indexing mechanism, which attempts
to be reasonably easy to use in the common case in spite of its
power.

\S{input-index-simple} Simple indexing

In normal usage, you should be able to add index terms to your
document simply by using the \i\c{\\i} command to wrap one or two
words at a time. For example, if you write

\c The \i{hippopotamus} is a particularly large animal.

then the index will contain an entry under \q{hippopotamus},
pointing to that sentence (or as close to that sentence as the
output format sensibly permits).

You can wrap more than one word in \c{\\i} as well:

\c We recommend using a \i{torque wrench} for this job.

\S{input-index-special} Special cases of indexing

If you need to index a computer-related term, you can use the
special case \i\c{\\i\\c} (or \i\c{\\i\\cw} if you prefer):

\c The \i\c{grep} command is what you want here.

This will cause the word \q{grep} to appear in code style, as if the
\c{\\i} were not present and the input just said \c{\\c\{grep\}};
the word will also appear in code style in the actual index.

If you want to simultaneously index and emphasise a word, there's
another special case \i\c{\\i\\e}:

\c This is what we call a \i\e{paper jam}.

This will cause the words \q{paper jam} to be emphasised in the
document, but (unlike the behaviour of \c{\\i\\c}) they will \e{not}
be emphasised in the index. This different behaviour is based on an
expectation that most people indexing a word of computer code will
still want it to look like code in the index, whereas most people
indexing an emphasised word will \e{not} want it emphasised in the
index.

(In fact, \e{no} emphasis in the text inside \c{\\i} will be
preserved in the index. If you really want a term in the index to
appear emphasised, you must say so explicitly using \c{\\IM}; see
\k{input-index-rewrite}.)

Sometimes you might want to index a term which is not explicitly
mentioned, but which is highly relevant to the text and you think
that somebody looking up that term in the index might find it useful
to be directed here. To do this you can use the \I{\\I-upper}\c{\\I}
command, to create an \i{\e{invisible} index tag}:

\c If your printer runs out of toner, \I{replacing toner
\c cartridge}here is what to do:

This input will produce only the output \q{If your printer runs out
of toner, here is what to do}; but an index entry will show up under
\q{replacing toner cartridge}, so that if a user thinks the obvious
place to start in the index is under R for \q{replacing}, they will
find their way here with a minimum of fuss.

(It's worth noting that there is no functional difference between
\c{\\i\{foo\}} and \c{\\I\{foo\}foo}. The simple \c{\\i} case is
only a shorthand for the latter.)

Finally, if you want to index a word at the start of a sentence, you
might very well not want it to show up with a capital letter in the
index. For this, Halibut provides the \i\c{\\ii} command, for
\q{index (case-)insensitively}. You use it like this:

\c \ii{Lions} are at the top of the food chain in this area.

This is equivalent to \c{\\I\{lions\}Lions}; in other words, the
text will say \q{Lions}, but it will show up in the index as
\q{lions}. The text inside \c{\\ii} is converted entirely into lower
case before being added to the index data.

\S{input-index-rewrite} \ii{Fine-tuning the index}

Halibut's index mechanism as described so far still has a few
problems left:

\b In a reasonably large index, it's often difficult to predict
\I{replicating index terms}which of several words a user will think
of first when trying to look something up. For example, if they want
to know how to replace a toner cartridge, they might look up
\q{replacing} or they might look up \q{toner cartridge}. You
probably don't really want to have to try to figure out which of
those is more likely; instead, what you'd like is to be able to
effortlessly index the same set of document locations under \e{both}
terms.

\b Also, you may find you've indexed the same concept under multiple
different \I{merging index terms}index terms; for example, there
might be several instances of \c{\\i\{frog\}} and several of
\c{\\i\{frogs\}}, so that you'd end up with two separate index
entries for what really ought to be the same concept.

\b You might well not want the word \cq{grep} to appear in the
index without explanation; you might prefer it to say something more
\I{rewriting index terms}verbose such as \q{\cw{grep} command}, so
that a user encountering it in the index has some idea of what it is
\e{without} having to follow up the reference. However, you
certainly don't want to have to write \c{\\I\{\\cw\{grep\}
command\}\\c\{grep\}} every time you want to add an index term for
this! You wanted to write \c{\\i\\c\{grep\}} as shown in the
previous section, and tidy it all up afterwards.

All of these problems can be cleaned up by the \i\c{\\IM} (for
\q{Index Modification}) command. \c{\\IM} expects to be followed by
one or more pairs of braces containing index terms as seen in the
document, and then a piece of text (not in braces) describing how it
should be shown in the index.

So to rewrite the \c{grep} example above, you might do this:

\c \IM{grep} \cw{grep} command

This will arrange that the set of places in the document where you
asked Halibut to index \cq{grep} will be listed under
\q{\cw{grep} command} rather than just under \cq{grep}.

You can specify more than one index term in a \c{\\IM} command; so
to merge the index terms \q{frog} and \q{frogs} into a single term,
you might do this:

\c \IM{frog}{frogs} frog

This will arrange that the single index entry \q{frog} will list
\e{all} the places in the document where you asked Halibut to index
either \q{frog} or \q{frogs}.

You can use multiple \c{\\IM} commands to replicate the same set of
document locations in more than one index entry. For example:

\c \IM{replacing toner cartridge} replacing toner cartridge
\c \IM{replacing toner cartridge} toner cartridge, replacing

This will arrange that every place in the document where you have
indexed \q{replacing toner cartridge} will be listed both there
\e{and} under \q{toner cartridge, replacing}, so that no matter
whether the user looks under R or under T they will stil find their
way to the same parts of the document.

In this example, note that although the first \c{\\IM} command
\e{looks} as if it's a tautology, it is still necessary, because
otherwise those document locations will \e{only} be indexed under
\q{toner cartridge, replacing}. If you have \e{no} explicit \c{\\IM}
commands for a particular index term, then Halibut will assume a
default one (typically \c{\\IM\{foo\}\_foo}, although it might be
\c{\\IM\{foo\}\_\\c\{foo\}} if you originally indexed using
\c{\\i\\c}); but as soon as you specify an explicit \c{\\IM},
Halibut discards its default implicit one, and you must then specify
that one explicitly as well if you wanted to keep it.

\S{input-index-case} Indexing terms that differ only in case

The \e{tags} you use to define an index term (that is, the text in
the braces after \c{\\i}, \c{\\I} and \c{\\IM}) are treated
case-insensitively by Halibut. So if, as in this manual itself, you
need two index terms that differ only in case, doing this will not
work:

\c The \i\c{\\c} command defines computer code.
\c
\c The \i\c{\\C} command defines a chapter.

Halibut will treat these terms as the same, and will fold the two
sets of references into one combined list (although it will warn you
that it is doing this). The idea is to ensure that people who forget
to use \c{\\ii} find out about it rather than Halibut silently
generating a bad index; checking an index for errors is very hard
work, so Halibut tries to avoid errors in the first place as much as
it can.

If you do come across this situation, you will need to define two
distinguishable index terms. What I did in this manual was something
like this:

\c The \i\c{\\c} command defines computer code.
\c
\c The \I{\\C-upper}\c{\\C} command defines a chapter.
\c
\c \IM{\\C-upper} \c{\\C}

The effect of this will be two separate index entries, one reading
\c{\\c} and the other reading \c{\\C}, pointing to the right places.

\H{input-config} \ii{Configuring} Halibut

Halibut uses the \i\c{\\cfg} command to allow you to configure various
aspects of its functionality.

The \c{\\cfg} command expects to be followed by at least one pair of
braces, and usually more after that. The first pair of braces
contains a keyword indicating what aspect of Halibut you want to
configure, and the meaning of the one(s) after that depends on the
first keyword.

The current list of configuration keywords in the main Halibut code
is quite small. Here it is in full:

\dt \I\cw{\\cfg\{chapter\}}\cw{\\cfg\{chapter\}\{}\e{new chapter name}\cw{\}}

\dd This tells Halibut that you don't want to call a chapter a
\I{renaming sections}\I{configuring heading display}chapter any
more. For example, if you give the command
\cw{\\cfg\{chapter\}\{Book\}}, then any chapter defined with the
\c{\\C} command will be labelled \q{Book} rather than \q{Chapter},
both in the section headings and in cross-references. This is
probably most useful if your document is not written in English.

\lcont{

Your replacement name should be given with a capital letter. Halibut
will leave it alone if it appears at the start of a sentence (in a
chapter title, or when \c{\\K} is used), and will lower-case it
otherwise (when \c{\\k} is used).

}

\dt \I\cw{\\cfg\{section\}}\cw{\\cfg\{section\}\{}\e{new section name}\cw{\}}

\dd Exactly like \c{chapter}, but changes the name given to
subsections of a chapter.

\dt \I\cw{\\cfg\{appendix\}}\cw{\\cfg\{appendix\}\{}\e{new appendix name}\cw{\}}

\dd Exactly like \c{chapter}, but changes the name given to
appendices.

\dt \I\cw{\\cfg\{input-charset\}}\cw{\\cfg\{input-charset\}\{}\e{character set name}\cw{\}}

\dd This tells Halibut what \i{character set} you are writing your
input file in. By default, it is assumed to be US-ASCII (meaning
\e{only} plain \i{ASCII}, with no accented characters at all).

\lcont{

You can specify any well-known name for any supported character set.
For example, \c{iso-8859-1}, \c{iso8859-1} and \c{iso_8859-1} are
all recognised, \c{GB2312} and \c{EUC-CN} both work, and so on.

This directive takes effect immediately after the \c{\\cfg} command.
All text after that in the file is expected to be in the new
character set. You can even change character set several times
within a file if you really want to.

When Halibut reads the input file, everything you type will be
converted into \i{Unicode} from the character set you specify here,
will be processed as Unicode by Halibut internally, and will be
written to the various output formats in whatever character sets
they deem appropriate.

}

\dt \I\cw{\\cfg\{quotes\}}\cw{\\cfg\{quotes\}\{}\e{open-quote}\cw{\}\{}\e{close-quote}\cw{\}}[\cw{\{}\e{open-quote}\cw{\}\{}\e{close-quote}...\cw{\}}]

\dd This specifies the quote characters which should be used. You
should separately specify the open and close quote marks; each
quote mark can be one character (\cw{\\cfg\{quotes\}\{`\}\{'\}}), or
more than one (\cw{\\cfg\{quotes\}\{<<\}\{>>\}}).

\lcont{

\cw{\\cfg\{quotes\}} can be overridden by configuration directives for
each individual backend (see \k{output}); it is a convenient way of
setting quote characters for all backends at once.

All backends use these characters in response to the \c{\\q} command
(see \k{input-quotes}). Some (such as the text backend) use them for
other purposes too.

You can specify multiple fallback options in this command (a pair of
open and close quotes, each in their own braces, then another pair,
then another if you like), and Halibut will choose the first pair
which the output character set supports (Halibut will always use a
matching pair). (This is to allow you to configure quote characters
once, generate output in several different character sets, and have
Halibut constantly adapt to make the best use of the current
encoding.) For example, you might write

\c \cfg{quotes}{\u201c}{\u201d}{"}{"}

and Halibut would use the Unicode matched double quote characters if
possible, and fall back to ASCII double quotes otherwise. If the
output character set were to contain U+201C but not U+201D, then
Halibut would fall back to using the ASCII double quote character as
\e{both} open and close quotes. (No known character set is that
silly; I mention it only as an example.)

\cw{\\cfg\{quotes\}} (and the backend-specific versions) apply to the
\e{entire} output; it's not possible to change quote characters
partway through the output.

}

In addition to these configuration commands, there are also
configuration commands provided by each individual output format.
These configuration commands are discussed along with each output
format, in \k{output}.

The \i{default settings} for the above options are:

\c \cfg{chapter}{Chapter}
\c \cfg{section}{Section}
\c \cfg{appendix}{Appendix}
\c \cfg{input-charset}{ASCII}

(The default settings for \cw{\\cfg\{quotes\}} are backend-specific;
see \k{output}.)

\H{input-macro} Defining \i{macros}

If there's a complicated piece of Halibut source which you think
you're going to use a lot, you can define your own Halibut command
to produce that piece of source.

In \k{input-unicode}, there is a sample piece of code which prints a
Euro sign, or replaces it with \q{EUR} if the Euro sign is not
available:

\c This is likely to cost \u20AC{EUR\_}2500 at least.

If your document quotes a \e{lot} of prices in Euros, you might not
want to spend all your time typing that out. So you could define a
macro, using the \i\c{\\define} command:

\c \define{eur} \u20AC{EUR\_}

Your macro names may include Roman alphabetic characters
(\c{a}-\c{z}, \c{A}-\c{Z}) and ordinary Arabic numerals
(\c{0}-\c{9}), but nothing else. (This is general \I{command
syntax}syntax for all of Halibut's commands, except for a few
special ones such as \c{\\_} and \c{\\-} which consist of a single
punctuation character only.)

Then you can just write ...

\c This is likely to cost \eur 2500 at least.

... except that that's not terribly good, because you end up with a
space between the Euro sign and the number. (If you had written
\c{\\eur2500}, Halibut would have tried to interpret it as a macro
command called \c{eur2500}, which you didn't define.) In this case,
it's helpful to use the special \i\c{\\.} command, which is defined
to \I{NOP}\I{doing nothing}do nothing at all! But it acts as a
separator between your macro and the next character:

\c This is likely to cost \eur\.2500 at least.

This way, you will see no space between the Euro sign and the number
(although, of course, there will be space between \q{EUR} and the
number if the Euro sign is not available, because the macro
definition specifically asked for it).