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version 1.144, 2011/10/06 23:06:31

version 1.164, 2013/12/26 14:39:35

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<HEAD>

<TITLE>mdocml | mdoc macro compiler</TITLE>

<TITLE>mdocml | UNIX manpage compiler</TITLE>

</HEAD>

<BODY>

mdocml – mdoc macro compiler, current version @VERSION@ (@VDATE@)

mdocml – UNIX manpage compiler, current version @VERSION@ (@VDATE@)

Sources: <A HREF="/snapshots/mdocml.tar.gz">current</A>,

<A HREF="/cgi-bin/cvsweb/?cvsroot=mdocml">cvsweb</A>

(<A HREF="/snapshots/">archives</A>)

Binaries: <A

HREF="/binaries/mdocml-win32.zip">windows 32-bit</A>, <A

HREF="/binaries/mdocml-win64.zip">windows 64-bit</A>, <A

HREF="/binaries/mdocml-macosx.zip">mac os x</A>

(<A HREF="/binaries/">archives</A>)

<H1>

<A NAME="description">Description</A>

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mdocml is a suite of tools compiling <A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc</A>, the roff macro

package of choice for BSD manual pages, and <A HREF="man.7.html">man</A>, the predominant historical package for

UNIX manuals. The mission of mdocml is to deprecate <A

UNIX manuals.

HREF="http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/" CLASS="external">groff</A>, the GNU troff implementation, for displaying mdoc

It is small, ISO C, <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.isc.org/software/license">ISC</A>-licensed, and quite fast.

pages whilst providing token support for man.

Why? groff amounts to over 5 MB of source code, most of which is C++ and all of which is GPL. It runs slowly, produces

The tool set features <A HREF="mandoc.1.html">mandoc</A>,

uncertain output, and varies in operation from system to system. mdocml strives to fix this (respectively small, C, <A

based on the <A HREF="mandoc.3.html">libmandoc</A> validating compiler,

CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.isc.org/software/license">ISC</A>-licensed, fast and regular).

to format output for UNIX terminals (with

mdocml consists of the <A HREF="mandoc.3.html">libmandoc</A> validating compiler and <A

HREF="mandoc.1.html">mandoc</A>, which interfaces with the compiler library to format output for UNIX terminals (with

support for wide-character locales), XHTML, HTML, PostScript, and PDF.

It also includes <A HREF="preconv.1.html">preconv</A>, for recoding multibyte manuals;

<A HREF="demandoc.1.html">demandoc</A>, for emitting only text parts of manuals;

<A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A>, for indexing manuals; and

<A HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos</A>, for semantic search of manual content.

<A HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos</A>, <A HREF="whatis.1.html">whatis</A>, and

It is a <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://bsd.lv/">BSD.lv</A> project.

<A HREF="man.cgi.7.html">man.cgi</A> (via <A HREF="catman.8.html">catman</A>) for semantic search of manual content.

mdocml has predominantly been developed on OpenBSD

and is both an <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.openbsd.org/">OpenBSD</A>

and a <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://bsd.lv/">BSD.lv</A> project.

We strive to support all interested free operating systems, in particular

<A CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.dragonflybsd.org/">DragonFly</A>,

<A CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.netbsd.org/">NetBSD</A>,

<A CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</A>,

<A CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.minix3.org/">Minix 3</A>,

and <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.gnu.org/">GNU</A>/Linux,

as well as all systems running the <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.pkgsrc.org/">pkgsrc</A> portable package build system.

All of these projects have helped to make mdocml better, by providing feedback and advice,

bug reports, and patches.

Disambiguation: mdocml is often referred to by its installed binary, <Q>mandoc</Q>.

<H2>

<A NAME="sources">Sources</A>

</H2>

mdocml is in plain-old ANSI C and should build and run on any modern system.

mdocml is in ISO C99 and should build and run on any modern system; however, you'll need <A

To build and install into /usr/local/, just run <CODE>make install</CODE>.

HREF="http://www.sqlite.org">sqlite3</A> to build <A HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos</A> (links to whatis),

Be aware: if you have an existing groff installation, this may overwrite its preconv binary.

<A HREF="man.cgi.7.html">man.cgi</A>, and <A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A>.

The <A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A> utility is not yet linked to the build; please <A HREF="#contact">contact

To build and install into /usr/local/, just run <CODE>make install</CODE>.

us</A> if you plan to use it.

Be careful: the preconv, apropos, and whatis binary names are usually taken by existing utilities.

<H2>

<A NAME="binaries">Binaries</A>

</H2>

Binary archives consist of pre-compiled binaries, manuals, and other necessary files.

Universal (Mac OS X) binaries are compiled for the PCC, i386, and x86_64 architectures.

Windows binaries are compiled with <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.mingw.org">MingW</A> for the 32-bit (i686) and

64-bit (x86_64) architectures.

<H2>

Downstream

</H2>

Several systems come bundled with mdocml utilities.

If your system does not appear below, the maintainers have not contacted me and it should not be considered

<Q>official</Q>.

<Q>official</Q>, so please <A HREF="#contact">contact us</A> if you plan on maintaining a downstream version!

Please <A HREF="#contact">contact us</A> if you plan on maintaining a downstream version!

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<TR>

<TD>DragonFly BSD</TD>

<TD>

<A HREF="http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/tree/HEAD:/usr.bin/mandoc"

<A HREF="http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/tree/HEAD:/contrib/mdocml" CLASS="external">contrib/mdocml</A> (post-1.12.2 sources)

CLASS="external">usr.bin/mandoc</A>

<A HREF="http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/tree/HEAD:/lib/libmandoc" CLASS="external">lib/libmandoc</A>

<A HREF="http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/tree/HEAD:/usr.bin/mandoc" CLASS="external">usr.bin/mandoc</A> (build system)

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

<TD>FreeBSD</TD>

<TD>FreeBSD 10.0, -CURRENT</TD>

<TD>

<A HREF="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/textproc/mdocml/"

<A HREF="http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/contrib/mdocml/" CLASS="external">contrib/mdocml</A> (1.12.1 sources)

CLASS="external">ports/textproc/mdocml</A>

<A HREF="http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/usr.bin/mandoc/" CLASS="external">usr.bin/mandoc</A> (build system)

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

<TD>FreeBSD 9.x, 8.x</TD>

<TD>

<A HREF="http://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports/head/textproc/mdocml/" CLASS="external">ports/textproc/mdocml</A> (1.12.2 port)

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

<TD>NetBSD</TD>

<TD>

<A HREF="http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/external/bsd/mdocml/"

<A HREF="http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/external/bsd/mdocml/" CLASS="external">src/external/bsd/mdocml</A> (1.12.1 sources plus patches and build system)

CLASS="external">src/external/bsd/mdocml</A>

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

<TD>OpenBSD</TD>

<TD>

<A HREF="http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/mandoc/"

<A HREF="http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/mandoc/" CLASS="external">src/usr.bin/mandoc</A> (post-1.12.2 sources under active development and build system)

CLASS="external">src/usr.bin/mandoc</A>

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

<TD>pkgsrc</TD>

<TD>

<A HREF="http://pkgsrc.se/textproc/mdocml" CLASS="external">textproc/mdocml</A> (1.12.2 port)

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

<TD>Minix3</TD>

<TD>

<A HREF="http://git.minix3.org/?p=minix.git;a=tree;f=external/bsd/mdocml" CLASS="external">external/bsd/mdocml</A> (1.10.9 sources and build system)

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

<TD>Alpine Linux</TD>

<TD>

<A HREF="http://git.alpinelinux.org/cgit/aports/tree/main/mdocml" CLASS="external">aports/main/mdocml</A> (1.12.2 port)

</TD>

</TR>

</TBODY>

</TABLE>

<H1>

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<TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos(1)</A></TD>

search the manual page database

(<A HREF="apropos.1.txt">text</A> |

<A HREF="apropos.1.xhtml">xhtml</A> |

<A HREF="apropos.1.pdf">pdf</A> |

<A HREF="apropos.1.ps">ps</A>)

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

<TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="demandoc.1.html">demandoc(1)</A></TD>

emit only text of UNIX manuals

(<A HREF="demandoc.1.txt">text</A> |

<A HREF="demandoc.1.xhtml">xhtml</A> |

<A HREF="demandoc.1.pdf">pdf</A> |

<A HREF="demandoc.1.ps">ps</A>)

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

<TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="mandoc.1.html">mandoc(1)</A></TD>

format and display UNIX manuals

(<A HREF="mandoc.1.txt">text</A> |

<A HREF="mandoc.1.xhtml">xhtml</A> |

<A HREF="mandoc.1.pdf">pdf</A> |

<A HREF="mandoc.1.ps">ps</A>)

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

<TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="preconv.1.html">preconv(1)</A></TD>

recode multibyte UNIX manuals

(<A HREF="preconv.1.txt">text</A> |

<A HREF="preconv.1.xhtml">xhtml</A> |

<A HREF="preconv.1.pdf">pdf</A> |

<A HREF="preconv.1.ps">ps</A>)

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

<TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="mandoc.3.html">mandoc(3)</A></TD>

mandoc macro compiler library

(<A HREF="mandoc.3.txt">text</A> |

<A HREF="mandoc.3.xhtml">xhtml</A> |

<A HREF="mandoc.3.pdf">pdf</A> |

<A HREF="mandoc.3.ps">ps</A>)

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

man language reference

roff table parser library for mandoc

(<A HREF="man.7.txt">text</A> |

<A HREF="man.7.xhtml">xhtml</A> |

<A HREF="man.7.pdf">pdf</A> |

<A HREF="man.7.ps">ps</A>)

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

eqn-mandoc language reference

(<A HREF="eqn.7.txt">text</A> |

<A HREF="eqn.7.xhtml">xhtml</A> |

<A HREF="eqn.7.pdf">pdf</A> |

<A HREF="eqn.7.ps">ps</A>)

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

man language reference

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

cgi for manpage query and display

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

<TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="mandoc_char.7.html">mandoc_char(7)</A></TD>

mandoc special characters

(<A HREF="mandoc_char.7.txt">text</A> |

<A HREF="mandoc_char.7.xhtml">xhtml</A> |

<A HREF="mandoc_char.7.pdf">pdf</A> |

<A HREF="mandoc_char.7.ps">ps</A>)

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

mdoc language reference

(<A HREF="mdoc.7.txt">text</A> |

<A HREF="mdoc.7.xhtml">xhtml</A> |

<A HREF="mdoc.7.pdf">pdf</A> |

<A HREF="mdoc.7.ps">ps</A>)

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

roff-mandoc language reference

(<A HREF="roff.7.txt">text</A> |

<A HREF="roff.7.xhtml">xhtml</A> |

<A HREF="roff.7.pdf">pdf</A> |

<A HREF="roff.7.ps">ps</A>)

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

tbl-mandoc language reference

(<A HREF="tbl.7.txt">text</A> |

<A HREF="tbl.7.xhtml">xhtml</A> |

<A HREF="tbl.7.pdf">pdf</A> |

<A HREF="tbl.7.ps">ps</A>)

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

<TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb(8)</A></TD>

index UNIX manuals

(<A HREF="mandocdb.8.txt">text</A> |

<A HREF="mandocdb.8.xhtml">xhtml</A> |

<A HREF="mandocdb.8.pdf">pdf</A> |

<A HREF="mandocdb.8.ps">ps</A>)

</TD>

</TR>

</TBODY>

</TABLE>

<H2>

<A NAME="links">Supplementary Information</A>

</H2>

<UL>

<LI>

<A HREF="http://manpages.bsd.lv/">Practical UNIX Manuals</A>: mdoc tutorial by Kristaps Dzonsons

</LI>

<LI>

<A HREF="http://www.openbsd.org/faq/ports/specialtopics.html#Mandoc" CLASS="external">OpenBSD porting guide</A>

chapter regarding manual pages

</LI>

<LI>

<A HREF="press.html">Publications and media coverage</A>

concerning mdocml and mandoc

</LI>

<LI>

<A HREF="http://manpages.bsd.lv/history.html">History of UNIX Manpages</A>: a comprehensive overview by Kristaps Dzonsons

</LI>

</UL>

<H1>

<A NAME="contact">Contact</A>

</H1>

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<A HREF="http://mdocml.bsd.lv/cgi-bin/cvsweb/TODO?cvsroot=mdocml">TODO</A> for known issues

before posting. All lists are subscription-only: send a blank e-mail to the listed address to subscribe. Beyond that,

contact Kristaps at <A HREF="http://mailhide.recaptcha.net/d?k=01M6h_w7twDp58ZgH57eWC_w==&c=Q2DBUt401ePlSeupJFrq_Q==" TITLE="Reveal

this e-mail address">kris...</A>@bsd.lv.

this e-mail address">kris...</A>@bsd.lv. Archives are available at <A HREF="http://gmane.org/" CLASS="external">Gmane</A>.

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</TD>

<TD>

bug-reports, general questions, and announcements

(<A HREF="/archives/discuss/">archive</A>)

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

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</TD>

<TD>

patches and system discussions

(<A HREF="/archives/tech/">archive</A>)

</TD>

</TR>

<TR>

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</TD>

<TD>

source commit messages

(<A HREF="/archives/source/">archive</A>)

</TD>

</TR>

</TBODY>

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</H1>

xx-xx-2011: version 1.xx.x

xx-xx-2013: version 1.13.0

This version features a new, work-in-progress <A HREF="mandoc.1.html">mandoc</A> output mode: -Tman. This mode

The <A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A> tools (<A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A>, <A

allows a system maintainer to distribute <A HREF="man.7.html">man</A> media for older systems that may not natively

HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos</A> (absorbing whatis), and <A HREF="man.cgi.7.html">man.cgi</A>) have been re-written to

support <A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc</A>, such as old Solaris systems.

use <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.sqlite.org">sqlite3</A> as a database.

The -Ofragment option was added to <A HREF="mandoc.1.html">mandoc</A>'s -Thtml and -Txhtml modes.

05-10-2013: version 1.12.2

While adding features, an <A HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos</A> utility has been merged from the mandoc-tools sandbox.

The <A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc(7)</A> to <A HREF="man.7.html">man(7)</A> converter,

This interfaces with <A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A> for semantic search of manual content.

to be called as <CODE>mandoc -Tman</CODE>, is now fully functional.

In documentation news, the <A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc</A> and <A HREF="man.7.html">man</A> manuals have been made

The <A HREF="mandoc.1.html">mandoc(1)</A> utility now supports the <CODE>-Ios</CODE> (default operating system)

considerably more readable by adding MACRO OVERVIEW sections, by moving the gory details of the LANGUAGE

input option, and the <CODE>-Tutf8</CODE> output mode now actually works.

SYNTAX to the <A HREF="roff.7.html">roff</A> manual, and by moving the very technical MACRO SYNTAX sections

down to the bottom of the page.

Furthermore, for <A HREF="tbl.7.html">tbl</A>, the -Tascii mode horizontal spacing of tables was rewritten

The <A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb(8)</A> utility no longer truncates existing databases when starting to build new ones,

completely. It is now compatible with <A HREF="http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/" CLASS="external">groff</A>, both

but only replaces them when the build actually succeeds.

with and without frames and rulers. Nesting of indented blocks is now supported in <A HREF="man.7.html">man</A>, and

several bugs were fixed regarding indentation and alignment. The page headers in <A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc</A> are now

nicer for very long titles.

02-09-2011: version 1.11.7

The <A HREF="man.7.html">man(7)</A> parser now supports the PD macro (paragraph distance),

and (for GNU man-ext compatibility only) EX (example block) and EE (example end).

Plus several bugfixes regarding indentation, line breaks, and vertical spacing,

and regarding RS following TP.

Added <A HREF="demandoc.1.html">demandoc</A> utility for stripping away macros and escapes. This replaces the

The <A HREF="roff.7.html">roff(7)</A> parser now supports the \f(BI (bold+italic) font escape,

historical <CODE>deroff</CODE> utility. Also improved the <A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc</A> and <A HREF="man.7.html">man</A> manuals.

the \z (zero cursor advance) escape and the cc (change control character)

and it (input line trap) requests.

Plus bugfixes regarding the \t (tab) escape, nested escape sequences, and conditional requests.

16-08-2011: version 1.11.6

In <A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc(7)</A>, several bugs were fixed related to UTF-8 output of quoting enclosures,

delimiter handling, list indentation and horizontal and vertical spacing,

formatting of the Lk, %U, and %C macros,

plus some bugfixes related to the handling of syntax errors like badly nested font blocks,

stray Ta macros outside column lists, unterminated It Xo blocks,

and non-text children of Nm blocks.

Handling of tr macro in <A HREF="roff.7.html">roff</A> implemented. This makes Perl documentation much more

In <A HREF="tbl.7.html">tbl(7)</A>, the width of horizontal spans and the vertical spacing around tables was corrected,

readable. Hyphenation is also now enabled in <A HREF="man.7.html">man</A> format documents. Many other general

and in <A HREF="man.7.html">man(7)</A> files, a crash was fixed that was triggered by some particular unclosed T{ macros.

improvements have been implemented. Furthermore, a 64-bit Windows binary is now available at <A

HREF="/binaries/mdocml-win64.zip">mdocml-win64.zip</A> and a Mac OS X universal binary is available at <A

HREF="/binaries/mdocml-macosx.zip">mdocml-macosx.zip</A>.

For mandoc developers, we now provide a <A HREF="tbl.3.html">tbl(3)</A> library manual and <CODE>gmdiff</CODE>,

a very small, very simplistic groff-versus-mandoc output comparison tool.

24-07-2011: version 1.11.5

23-03-2012: version 1.12.1

Significant <A HREF="eqn.7.html">eqn</A> improvements. mdocml can now parse arbitrary eqn input

Significant work on <A HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos</A> and <A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A>. These tools are

(although few GNU extensions are accepted, nor is mixing low-level roff with eqn). See the <A HREF="eqn.7.html">eqn</A>

now much more robust.

manual for details. For the time being, equations are rendered as simple in-line text. The equation parser satisfies

A <A HREF="whatis.1.html">whatis</A> implementation is now handled as an <A HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos</A> mode.

the language specified in the <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.kohala.com/start/troff/v7man/eqn/eqn2e.ps">Second

These tools are also able to minimally handle pre-formatted pages, that is, those already formatted by another utility

Edition User's Guide</A>.

such as GNU troff.

This is also the first release featuring a distributed Windows binary, available at <A

The <A HREF="man.cgi.7.html">man.cgi</A> script is also now available for wider testing. It interfaces with <A

HREF="/binaries/mdocml-win32.zip">/binaries/mdocml-win32.zip</A>.

HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A> manuals cached by <A HREF="catman.8.html">catman</A>. HTML output is generated

on-the-fly by <A HREF="mandoc.3.html">libmandoc</A> or internal methods to convert pre-formatted pages.

See <A HREF="http://mdocml.bsd.lv/cgi-bin/cvsweb/index.sgml?cvsroot=mdocml">cvsweb</A> for

The mailing list archive for the discuss and tech lists are being hosted by <A CLASS="external"

historical notes.

HREF="http://www.gmane.org">Gmane</A> at <A HREF="http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.user"

CLASS="external">gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.user</A> and <A HREF="http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.devel"

CLASS="external">gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.devel</A>, respectively.

Lastly, I'm no longer providing binaries, as nobody has asked for them.

<H2>

<A>History</A>

</H2>

<UL>

<LI>

<A HREF="NEWS">Release notes</A> going back to release 1.9.15, February 18, 2010.

Briefly explaining the most important changes in each release in relatively easy terms.

Very many changes are not mentioned here.

</LI>

<LI>

<A HREF="history.html">Development history</A> going back to the beginning of the project, November 22, 2008.

One-line entries for important commits, releases, merges, hackathons and talks.

Makes it easy to find out who did what, and when, and when it became available where.

However, this is still incomplete, mentioning only a small fraction of all commits,

and to keep the size down, the individual entries are extremely terse and technical.

Feel free to look up more details and longer explanations about individual entries

in the ChangeLog or in CVS.

</LI>

<LI>

<A HREF="ChangeLog">CVS ChangeLog</A> going back to the beginning of the project.

Very technical information of varying quality, strictly chronological.

All commits are mentioned, but some messages neglect to mention some changes.

Partly terse, partly detailed and verbose. In any case, the ChangeLog is very long -

more than 25,000 lines, more than 700 kB.

</LI>

<LI>

<A HREF="/cgi-bin/cvsweb/?cvsroot=mdocml">CVS</A> web interface, going back to the beginning of the project.

Source code, diffs and commit messages for each source file. The real thing.

</LI>

</UL>

<A CLASS="external" HREF="http://kristaps.bsd.lv">Kristaps Dzonsons</A>,

$Date$

CVSweb