---
name: "captain"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "captain"
version: "1:0.6-4"
release: "Debian 3.0 (Woody)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/kaptain"
---

# captain(1)

is a universal graphical front-end based on context-free grammars; it reads a file containing grammatical rules for generating text, builds a dialog from the grammar and generates the text according to the user's settings. kaptainshell - is a simple kaptain grammar script which shows up the grammars located in /usr/share/kaptain and the user can choose from that list.

Part of [kaptain(1)](/kaptain/1.md).

## NAME

**kaptain** - is a universal graphical front-end based on  context-free grammars; it reads a file containing grammatical rules for generating text, builds a dialog from the grammar and generates the text according to the user's settings.

**kaptainshell** - is a simple kaptain grammar script which shows up the grammars located in */usr/share/kaptain* and the user can choose from that list.

## SYNOPSIS

**kaptain** \[*options*\] *file*\

## DESCRIPTION

This manual page documents briefly the **kaptain** commands and **kaptainshell** script. This manual page was written for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution because the original program does not have a manual page. Instead, it has documentation in the HTML format; see  */usr/share/doc/kaptain/html/index.html* for more information.

## OPTIONS

A summary of **kaptain** options is included below. For a complete description, see the HTML files.

- **-t, --test**

  The program won't execute the generated command, just write it to the standard output. It useful for test purposes for grammar writers.

- **-v, --verbose**

  It makes **kaptain** print out every rule it reads. You can check where the parser failed, if the grammar contains errors.

## AUTHOR

This manual page was written by Mariusz Przygodzki \<dune@home.pl\>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others).