hp(C)


hp -- handle special functions of Hewlett-Packard terminals

Syntax

hp [ -e ] [ -m ]

Description

hp supports the special functions of the Hewlett-Packard 2640 series of terminals, with the primary purpose of producing accurate representations of most nroff output. A typical usage is in conjunction with text processing software:

nroff -h files ... | hp

Regardless of the hardware options on your terminal, hp tries to do sensible things with underlining and reverse line-feeds. If the terminal has the ``display enhancements'' feature, subscripts and superscripts can be indicated in distinct ways. If it has the ``mathematical-symbol'' feature, Greek and other special characters can be displayed.

The flags are as follows:


-e
It is assumed that your terminal has the ``display enhancements'' feature, and so maximal use is made of the added display modes. Overstruck characters are presented in the Underlined mode. Superscripts are shown in Half-bright mode, and subscripts in Half-bright, Underlined mode. If this flag is omitted, hp assumes that your terminal lacks the ``display enhancements'' feature. In this case, all overstruck characters, subscripts, and superscripts are displayed in Inverse Video mode, that is, dark-on-light, rather than the usual light-on-dark.

-m
Requests minimization of output by changing new-lines to ^M's. Any contiguous sequence of 3 or more new-lines is converted into a sequence of only 2 new-lines; that is, any number of successive blank lines produces only a single blank output line. This allows you to retain more actual text on the screen.
With regard to Greek and other special characters, hp provides the same set as 300(C) , except that ``not'' is approximated by a right arrow, and only the top half of the integral sign is shown.

Diagnostics


line too long
The line is too long if the representation of a line exceeds 1,024 characters. The exit codes are 0 for normal termination, 2 for all errors.

Limitations

An ``overstriking sequence'' is defined as a printing character followed by a backspace followed by another printing character. In such sequences, if either printing character is an underscore, the other printing character is shown underlined or in Inverse Video; otherwise, only the first printing character is shown (again, underlined or in Inverse Video). Nothing special is done if a backspace is adjacent to an ASCII control character. Sequences of control characters (for example, reverse line-feeds, backspaces) can make text ``disappear.'' In particular, tables generated by tbl that contain vertical lines will often be missing the lines of text that contain the ``foot'' of a vertical line, unless the input to hp is piped through col(C).

Although some terminals do provide numerical superscript characters, no attempt is made to display them.

See also

300(C), greek(C)
© 2005 The SCO Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
SCO OpenServer Release 6.0.0 -- 03 June 2005