1 files changed, 47 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/gnu/packages/groff.scm b/gnu/packages/groff.scm
index 6e1a60e9ba..fd098cd770 100644
--- a/gnu/packages/groff.scm
+++ b/gnu/packages/groff.scm
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 ;;; Copyright © 2013 Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr>
 ;;; Copyright © 2014 Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org>
 ;;; Copyright © 2016 Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net>
+;;; Copyright © 2017 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org>
 ;;;
 ;;; This file is part of GNU Guix.
 ;;;
@@ -72,6 +73,52 @@ is usually the formatter of \"man\" documentation pages.")
    (license gpl3+)
    (home-page "https://www.gnu.org/software/groff/")))
 
+(define-public groff-minimal
+  ;; Minimialist groff for use by man-db.  Its closure size is less than half
+  ;; that of the full-blown groff.
+  (package
+    (inherit groff)
+    (name "groff-minimal")
+    (synopsis "Minimalist variant of Groff for use by man-db")
+    (outputs '("out"))
+
+    ;; Omit the DVI, PS, PDF, and HTML backends.
+    (inputs '())
+    (native-inputs `(("bison" ,bison)
+                     ("perl" ,perl)))
+
+    (arguments
+     `(#:disallowed-references (,perl)
+
+       #:configure-flags '("--docdir=/tmp/trash/doc")
+
+       #:phases (modify-phases %standard-phases
+                  (add-after 'install 'remove-non-essential-programs
+                    (lambda* (#:key outputs #:allow-other-keys)
+                      ;; Keep only the programs that man-db needs at run time,
+                      ;; and make sure we don't pull in Perl.
+                      (let ((out  (assoc-ref outputs "out"))
+                            (kept '("eqn" "neqn" "pic" "tbl" "refer"
+                                    "nroff" "groff" "troff" "grotty")))
+                        (for-each (lambda (file)
+                                    (unless (member (basename file) kept)
+                                      (delete-file file)))
+                                  (find-files (string-append out "/bin")))
+
+                        ;; Remove a bunch of unneeded Perl scripts.
+                        (for-each delete-file (find-files out "\\.pl$"))
+                        (for-each delete-file
+                                  (find-files out "BuildFoundries"))
+
+                        ;; Remove ~3 MiB from share/groff/X.Y/font/devBACKEND
+                        ;; corresponding to the unused backends.
+                        (for-each delete-file-recursively
+                                  (find-files out "^dev(dvi|ps|pdf|html|lj4)$"
+                                              #:directories? #t))
+                        #t))))
+
+       ,@(package-arguments groff)))))
+
 ;; There are no releases, so we take the latest commit.
 (define-public roffit
   (let ((commit "e5228388e3faf2b7f1ae5bd048ad46ed565304c6")