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Diff for /mandoc/roff.7 between version 1.32 and 1.33

version 1.32, 2011/09/02 19:37:35 version 1.33, 2011/09/26 23:07:31
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 .\"     $Id$  .\"     $Id$
 .\"  .\"
 .\" Copyright (c) 2010 Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@bsd.lv>  .\" Copyright (c) 2010, 2011 Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@bsd.lv>
 .\" Copyright (c) 2010 Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>  .\" Copyright (c) 2010, 2011 Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>
 .\"  .\"
 .\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any  .\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
 .\" purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above  .\" purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
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 The  The
 .Nm roff  .Nm roff
 language is a general purpose text formatting language.  language is a general purpose text formatting language.
 In particular, it serves as the basis for the  Since traditional implementations of the
 .Xr mdoc 7  .Xr mdoc 7
 and  and
 .Xr man 7  .Xr man 7
 manual formatting macro languages.  manual formatting languages are based on it,
 This manual describes the subset of the  many real-world manuals use small numbers of
 .Nm  .Nm
 language accepted by the  requests intermixed with their
   .Xr mdoc 7
   or
   .Xr man 7
   code.
   To properly format such manuals, the
 .Xr mandoc 1  .Xr mandoc 1
 utility.  utility supports a tiny subset of
   .Nm
   requests.
   Only these requests supported by
   .Xr mandoc 1
   are documented in the present manual,
   together with the basic language syntax shared by
   .Nm ,
   .Xr mdoc 7 ,
   and
   .Xr man 7 .
   For complete
   .Nm
   manuals, consult the
   .Sx SEE ALSO
   section.
 .Pp  .Pp
 Input lines beginning with the control characters  Input lines beginning with the control character
 .Sq \&.  .Sq \&.
 or  
 .Sq \(aq  
 are parsed for requests and macros.  are parsed for requests and macros.
 These define the document structure, change the processing state  Such lines are called
 and manipulate the formatting.  .Dq request lines
 Some requests and macros also produce formatted output,  or
 while others do not.  .Dq macro lines ,
   respectively.
   Requests change the processing state and manipulate the formatting;
   some macros also define the document structure and produce formatted
   output.
   The single quote
   .Pq Qq \(aq
   is accepted as an alternative control character,
   treated by
   .Xr mandoc 1
   just like
   .Ql \&.
 .Pp  .Pp
 All other input lines provide free-form text to be printed;  Lines not beginning with control characters are called
 the formatting of free-form text depends on the respective  .Dq text lines .
 processing context.  They provide free-form text to be printed; the formatting of the text
   depends on the respective processing context.
 .Sh LANGUAGE SYNTAX  .Sh LANGUAGE SYNTAX
 .Nm  .Nm
 documents may contain only graphable 7-bit ASCII characters, the space  documents may contain only graphable 7-bit ASCII characters, the space
 character, and, in certain circumstances, the tab character.  character, and, in certain circumstances, the tab character.
 To produce other characters in the output, use the escape sequences  The back-space character
 documented in the  .Sq \e
   indicates the start of an escape sequence for
   .Sx Comments ,
   .Sx Special Characters ,
   .Sx Predefined Strings ,
   and
   user-defined strings defined using the
   .Sx ds
   request.
   .Ss Comments
   Text following an escaped double-quote
   .Sq \e\(dq ,
   whether in a request, macro, or text line, is ignored to the end of the line.
   A request line beginning with a control character and comment escape
   .Sq \&.\e\(dq
   is also ignored.
   Furthermore, request lines with only a control character and optional
   trailing whitespace are stripped from input.
   .Pp
   Examples:
   .Bd -literal -offset indent -compact
   \&.\e\(dq This is a comment line.
   \&.\e\(dq The next line is ignored:
   \&.
   \&.Sh EXAMPLES \e\(dq This is a comment, too.
   \&example text \e\(dq And so is this.
   .Ed
   .Ss Special Characters
   Special characters are used to encode special glyphs and are rendered
   differently across output media.
   They may occur in request, macro, and text lines.
   Sequences begin with the escape character
   .Sq \e
   followed by either an open-parenthesis
   .Sq \&(
   for two-character sequences; an open-bracket
   .Sq \&[
   for n-character sequences (terminated at a close-bracket
   .Sq \&] ) ;
   or a single one character sequence.
   .Pp
   Examples:
   .Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
   .It Li \e(em
   Two-letter em dash escape.
   .It Li \ee
   One-letter backslash escape.
   .El
   .Pp
   See
 .Xr mandoc_char 7  .Xr mandoc_char 7
 manual.  for a complete list.
   .Ss Text Decoration
   Terms may be text-decorated using the
   .Sq \ef
   escape followed by an indicator: B (bold), I (italic), R (regular), or P
   (revert to previous mode).
   A numerical representation 3, 2, or 1 (bold, italic, and regular,
   respectively) may be used instead.
   .Pp
   Examples:
   .Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
   .It Li \efBbold\efR
   Write in bold, then switch to regular font mode.
   .It Li \efIitalic\efP
   Write in italic, then return to previous font mode.
   .El
   .Pp
   Text decoration is
   .Em not
   recommended for
   .Xr mdoc 7 ,
   which encourages semantic annotation.
   .Ss Predefined Strings
   Predefined strings, like
   .Sx Special Characters ,
   mark special output glyphs.
   Predefined strings are escaped with the slash-asterisk,
   .Sq \e* :
   single-character
   .Sq \e*X ,
   two-character
   .Sq \e*(XX ,
   and N-character
   .Sq \e*[N] .
   .Pp
   Examples:
   .Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
   .It Li \e*(Am
   Two-letter ampersand predefined string.
   .It Li \e*q
   One-letter double-quote predefined string.
   .El
   .Pp
   Predefined strings are not recommended for use,
   as they differ across implementations.
   Those supported by
   .Xr mandoc 1
   are listed in
   .Xr mandoc_char 7 .
   Manuals using these predefined strings are almost certainly not portable.
   .Ss Whitespace
   Whitespace consists of the space character.
   In text lines, whitespace is preserved within a line.
   In request and macro lines, whitespace delimits arguments and is discarded.
   .Pp
   Unescaped trailing spaces are stripped from text line input unless in a
   literal context.
   In general, trailing whitespace on any input line is discouraged for
   reasons of portability.
   In the rare case that a blank character is needed at the end of an
   input line, it may be forced by
   .Sq \e\ \e& .
   .Pp
   Literal space characters can be produced in the output
   using escape sequences.
   In macro lines, they can also be included in arguments using quotation; see
   .Sx MACRO SYNTAX
   for details.
   .Pp
   Blank text lines, which may include whitespace, are only permitted
   within literal contexts.
   If the first character of a text line is a space, that line is printed
   with a leading newline.
   .Ss Scaling Widths
   Many requests and macros support scaled widths for their arguments.
   The syntax for a scaled width is
   .Sq Li [+-]?[0-9]*.[0-9]*[:unit:] ,
   where a decimal must be preceded or followed by at least one digit.
   Negative numbers, while accepted, are truncated to zero.
   .Pp
   The following scaling units are accepted:
   .Pp
   .Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
   .It c
   centimetre
   .It i
   inch
   .It P
   pica (~1/6 inch)
   .It p
   point (~1/72 inch)
   .It f
   synonym for
   .Sq u
   .It v
   default vertical span
   .It m
   width of rendered
   .Sq m
   .Pq em
   character
   .It n
   width of rendered
   .Sq n
   .Pq en
   character
   .It u
   default horizontal span
   .It M
   mini-em (~1/100 em)
   .El
   .Pp
   Using anything other than
   .Sq m ,
   .Sq n ,
   .Sq u ,
   or
   .Sq v
   is necessarily non-portable across output media.
   See
   .Sx COMPATIBILITY .
   .Pp
   If a scaling unit is not provided, the numerical value is interpreted
   under the default rules of
   .Sq v
   for vertical spaces and
   .Sq u
   for horizontal ones.
   .Pp
   Examples:
   .Bl -tag -width ".Bl -tag -width 2i" -offset indent -compact
   .It Li \&.Bl -tag -width 2i
   two-inch tagged list indentation in
   .Xr mdoc 7
   .It Li \&.HP 2i
   two-inch tagged list indentation in
   .Xr man 7
   .It Li \&.sp 2v
   two vertical spaces
   .El
   .Ss Sentence Spacing
   Each sentence should terminate at the end of an input line.
   By doing this, a formatter will be able to apply the proper amount of
   spacing after the end of sentence (unescaped) period, exclamation mark,
   or question mark followed by zero or more non-sentence closing
   delimiters
   .Po
   .Sq \&) ,
   .Sq \&] ,
   .Sq \&' ,
   .Sq \&"
   .Pc .
   .Pp
   The proper spacing is also intelligently preserved if a sentence ends at
   the boundary of a macro line.
   .Pp
   Examples:
   .Bd -literal -offset indent -compact
   Do not end sentences mid-line like this.  Instead,
   end a sentence like this.
   A macro would end like this:
   \&.Xr mandoc 1 \&.
   .Ed
 .Sh REQUEST SYNTAX  .Sh REQUEST SYNTAX
 A request or macro line consists of:  A request or macro line consists of:
 .Pp  .Pp
Line 83  Thus, the following request lines are all equivalent:
Line 324  Thus, the following request lines are all equivalent:
 \&.   ig end  \&.   ig end
 .Ed  .Ed
 .Sh MACRO SYNTAX  .Sh MACRO SYNTAX
 Macros can be defined by the  Macros are provided by the
   .Xr mdoc 7
   and
   .Xr man 7
   languages and can be defined by the
 .Sx \&de  .Sx \&de
 request.  request.
 When called, they follow the same syntax as requests, except that  When called, they follow the same syntax as requests, except that
 macro arguments may optionally be quoted by enclosing them  macro arguments may optionally be quoted by enclosing them
 in double quote characters  in double quote characters
 .Pq Sq \(dq .  .Pq Sq \(dq .
 To be recognised as the beginning of a quoted argument, the opening  Quoted text, even if it contains whitespace or would cause
 quote character must be preceded by a space character.  a macro invocation when unquoted, is always considered literal text.
 .Pp  Inside quoted text, pairs of double quote characters
 A quoted argument may contain whitespace, and pairs of double quote  
 characters  
 .Pq Sq Qq  .Pq Sq Qq
 resolve to single double quote characters.  resolve to single double quote characters.
   .Pp
   To be recognised as the beginning of a quoted argument, the opening
   quote character must be preceded by a space character.
 A quoted argument extends to the next double quote character that is not  A quoted argument extends to the next double quote character that is not
 part of a pair, or to the end of the input line, whichever comes earlier.  part of a pair, or to the end of the input line, whichever comes earlier.
 Leaving out the terminating double quote character at the end of the line  Leaving out the terminating double quote character at the end of the line
Line 114  In unquoted arguments, space characters can alternativ
Line 360  In unquoted arguments, space characters can alternativ
 by preceding them with a backslash  by preceding them with a backslash
 .Pq Sq \e\~ ,  .Pq Sq \e\~ ,
 but quoting is usually better for clarity.  but quoting is usually better for clarity.
   .Pp
   Examples:
   .Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
   .It Li .Fn strlen \(dqconst char *s\(dq
   Group arguments
   .Qq const char *s
   into one function argument.
   If unspecified,
   .Qq const ,
   .Qq char ,
   and
   .Qq *s
   would be considered separate arguments.
   .It Li .Op \(dqFl a\(dq
   Consider
   .Qq \&Fl a
   as literal text instead of a flag macro.
   .El
 .Sh REQUEST REFERENCE  .Sh REQUEST REFERENCE
 The  The
 .Xr mandoc 1  .Xr mandoc 1

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