| ## EMBOSS: tfm

# Program tfm

## Function

Displays a program's help documentation manual

## Description

This program displays the help documentation for an EMBOSS program.

The contributors of the EMBOSS programs do attempt to provide an adequate description of the programs. This documentation is primarily held as HTML pages at http://www.uk.embnet.org/Software/EMBOSS/Apps/

The documentation is also available however through the program tfm as normal text.

tfm is unusual for an EMBOSS program in that it expects to be used interactively and so it displays the documentation text a page at a time, pausing after every page for the user to proess the SPACE bar on their keyboard. (i.e. it uses the UNIX program more to display the information). This behaviour can be turned off by using the qualifier -nomore.

If you have problems understanding the function or usage of an EMBOSS program, then you should contact the EMBOSS mailing list (emboss@embnet.org).

The unusual name of this program comes from the common computing science expression: RTFM. This acronym, as you probably already know, stands for Read The Fine* Manual; so this is The Fine* Manual.

* Insert the expletive of your choice here!

## Usage

Here is a sample session with tfm:

    % tfm wossname

You will see a page of documentation on the wossname program. To see further pages, you should press the SPACE bar on your keyboard. To stop seeing the documentation before you get to the end of the text, you can press the key q to quit.

## Command line arguments

       Mandatory qualifiers:
      [-program]           string     Enter the name of an EMBOSS program

       Optional qualifiers:
       -outfile            outfile    If you enter the name of a file here then
                                      this program will write the program names
                                      and brief descriptions into that file.
       -html               bool       This will format the output for displaying
                                      as a WWW document.
       -more               bool       This uses the standard UNIX utility 'more'
                                      to display the text page-by-page, waiting
                                      for you to read one screen-full before going
                                      on to the next page. When you have finished
                                      reading a page, press the SPACE bar to
                                      proceed to the next page.

       Advanced qualifiers: (none)
       General qualifiers:
      -help                bool       report command line options. More
                                      information on associated and general
                                      qualifiers can be found with -help -verbose

Mandatory qualifiers | Allowed values | Default
--- | --- | ---
[-program] (Parameter 1) | Enter the name of an EMBOSS program | Any string is accepted | An empty string is accepted
Optional qualifiers | Allowed values | Default
-outfile | If you enter the name of a file here then this program will write the program names and brief descriptions into that file. | Output file | stdout
-html | This will format the output for displaying as a WWW document. | Yes/No | No
-more | This uses the standard UNIX utility 'more' to display the text page-by-page, waiting for you to read one screen-full before going on to the next page. When you have finished reading a page, press the SPACE bar to proceed to the next page. | Yes/No | @(!$(html))
Advanced qualifiers | Allowed values | Default
(none)

## Input file format

None.

## Output file format

Text documentation is output.

The table of command line arguments can be a bit difficult to read. This is the result of changing HTML Web pages to text.

## Data files

The original data for the documentation can be found in: http://www.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk/Software/EMBOSS/Apps/

## Notes

None.

## References

None.

## Warnings

None.

## Diagnostic Error Messages

tfm will warn you if you have supplied the name of a program which is not documented yet or which doesn't exist in EMBOSS.

## Exit status

It always exits with status 0.

## Known bugs

None.

## See also

Program name | Description
--- | ---
infoalign | Information on a multiple sequence alignment
infoseq | Displays some simple information about sequences
seealso | Finds programs sharing group names
showdb | Displays information on the currently available databases
textsearch | Search sequence documentation text. SRS and Entrez are faster!
whichdb | Search all databases for an entry
wossname | Finds programs by keywords in their one-line documentation

## Author(s)

This application was written by Gary Williams (gwilliam@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk)

## History

Written: 4 Aug 2000.

## Target users

This program is intended to be used by everyone and everything, from naive users to embedded scripts.

## Comments