
                                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
