mandoc/TODO - diff

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Up to [cvsweb.bsd.lv] / mandoc

Diff for /mandoc/TODO between version 1.198 and 1.266

version 1.198, 2015/02/10 08:05:30

version 1.266, 2018/08/18 02:08:27

Line 33 Obviously, as the issues have not been solved yet, the

are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

************************************************************************

* crashes

************************************************************************

- The abort() in bufcat(), html.c, can be triggered via buffmt_includes()

by running -Thtml -Oincludes on a file containing a long .In argument.

Fixing this will probably require reworking the whole bufcat() concept.

loc ** exist * algo * size ** imp **

************************************************************************

* missing features

************************************************************************

Line 61 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 52 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

found by naddy@ in xloadimage(1)

loc ** exist *** algo * size * imp *

- .nr third argument (auto-increment step size, requires \n+)

found by bentley@ in sbcl(1) Mon, 9 Dec 2013 18:36:57 -0700

loc * exist * algo * size * imp **

- .ns (no-space mode) occurs in xine-config(1)

when implementing this, also let .TH set it

reported by brad@ Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500

loc *** exist *** algo *** size ** imp *

- .ta (tab settings) occurs in ircbug(1) and probably gnats(1)

reported by brad@ Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:50:51 -0500

also Tcl_NewStringObj(3) via wiz@ Wed, 5 Mar 2014 22:27:43 +0100

also posix2time(3) Carsten Kunze Mon, 1 Dec 2014 13:03:10 +0100

loc ** exist *** algo ** size ** imp ***

- .ti (temporary indent)

found by naddy@ in xloadimage(1) [devel/libvstr] vstr(3)

found by bentley@ in nmh(1) Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:38:28 -0600

loc ** exist ** algo ** size * imp ** (parser reorg helps a lot)

- .while and .shift

found by jca@ in ratpoison(1) Sun, 30 Jun 2013 12:01:09 +0200

loc * exist ** algo ** size ** imp **

- \h horizontal move

found in cclive(1) and nasm(1) asciidoc/DocBook output

bentley@ on discuss@ Sat, 21 Sep 2013 22:29:34 -0600

naddy@ Thu, 4 Dec 2014 16:26:41 +0100

loc ** exist ** algo ** size * imp ** (parser reorg helps a lot)

- \n+ and \n- numerical register increment and decrement

found by bentley@ in sbcl(1) Mon, 9 Dec 2013 18:36:57 -0700

loc * exist * algo * size * imp **

- \w'' improve width measurements

would not be very useful without an expression parser, see below

needed for Tcl_NewStringObj(3) via wiz@ Wed, 5 Mar 2014 22:27:43 +0100

loc ** exist *** algo *** size * imp ***

- using undefined strings or macros defines them to be empty

- \\ in high-level macro arguments

wl@ Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:37:01 +0000

Currently, \\ is expanded in two situations:

loc * exist * algo * size * imp *

1) macro and string definition (roff.c setstrn())

2) macro argument parsing (mandoc.c mandoc_getarg())

For user defined macros, the second happens in time because of ROFF_REPARSE.

But for standard high-level macros, it only happens after entering the

high level parsers, which is too late because the code doesn't get

back to roff.c roff_res() from that point. Because this requires

distinguishing requests, user-defined macros and standard macros

on the roff_res() level, it is hard to solve without the parser reorg.

Found by naddy@ in devel/cutils cobfusc(1) Mon, 16 Feb 2015 19:10:52 +0100

loc *** exist *** algo *** size ** imp *

- check for missing roff escape sequences, implement those that are

trivial even if not usually appearing in manual pages, gracefully

ignore the non-trivial ones, document what they are supposed to do

and what mandoc does instead

loc * exist ** algo * size * imp *

--- missing mdoc features ----------------------------------------------

- fix bad block nesting involving multiple identical explicit blocks

see the OpenBSD mdoc_macro.c 1.47 commit message

loc * exist *** algo *** size * imp **

- .Bl -column .Xo support is missing

ultimate goal:

restore .Xr and .Dv to

Line 162 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 140 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

is not safe, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Pf a b .' gives "ab."

but should give "ab ."

- check whether it is correct that `D1' uses INDENT+1;

does it need its own constant?

loc * exist ** algo ** size * imp **

- prohibit `Nm' from having non-text HEAD children

(e.g., NetBSD mDNSShared/dns-sd.1)

(mdoc_html.c and mdoc_term.c `Nm' handlers can be slightly simplified)

Line 188 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 162 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

--- missing man features -----------------------------------------------

- -T[x]html doesn't stipulate non-collapsing spaces in literal mode

- groff_www(7) .MTO and .URL

These macros were used by the GNU grep(1) man page.

The groff_www(7) manual page itself uses them, too.

We should probably *not* add them to mandoc.

Just mentioning this here to keep track of the abuse.

Laura Morales <lauretas at mail dot com> 20 Apr 2018 07:33:02 +0200

loc ** exist * algo * size ** imp *

--- missing tbl features -----------------------------------------------

- the "s" layout column specifier is used for placement of data

into columns, but ignored during column width calculations

synaptics(4) found by tedu@ Mon, 17 Aug 2015 21:17:42 -0400

loc * exist ** algo *** size * imp **

- vertical centering in cells vertically spanned with ^

pali dot rohar at gmail dot com 16 Jul 2018 13:03:35 +0200

loc * exist *** algo *** size ** imp *

- support .ds requests inside tbl(7) code,

see tbl(1) for an example

- support mdoc(7) and man(7) macros inside tbl(7) code;

probably requires the parser reorg and letting tbl(7)

use roff_node such that macro sets can mix;

informed by bapt@ that FreeBSD needs this: 3 Jan 2015 23:32:23 +0100

loc *** exist ** algo *** size ** imp ***

- look at the POSIX manuals in the books/man-pages-posix port,

they use some unsupported tbl(7) features.

loc * exist ** algo ** size ** imp ***

- look what Joerg Schilling manual pages use

Thu, 19 Mar 2015 18:31:48 +0100

- use Unicode U+2500 to U+256C for table borders

in tbl(7) -Tutf-8 output

suggested by bentley@ Tue, 14 Oct 2014 04:10:55 -0600

loc * exist ** algo * size * imp **

- allow standalone `.' to be interpreted as an end-of-layout

- implement horizontal and vertical alignment in HTML output

delimiter instead of being thrown away as a no-op roff line

pali dot rohar at gmail dot com 16 Jul 2018 13:03:35 +0200

reported by Yuri Pankov, Wed 18 May 2011 11:34:59 CEST

loc * exist * algo * size * imp ***

loc ** exist ** algo ** size * imp **

- implement cell spanning in HTML output

pali dot rohar at gmail dot com 16 Jul 2018 13:03:35 +0200

loc * exist * algo ** size ** imp **

- implement table borders in HTML output

pali dot rohar at gmail dot com 16 Jul 2018 13:03:35 +0200

loc * exist * algo ** size ** imp **

--- missing eqn features -----------------------------------------------

- In a matrix, break the output line after each matrix line.

Found in the discussion at CDBUG 2015.

Suggested by Avi Weinstock.

loc * exist * algo * size * imp **

- The "size" keyword is parsed, but ignored by the formatter.

loc * exist * algo * size * imp *

Line 219 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 232 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

see User's Guide (Second Edition) page 5 section 15.

loc ** exist ** algo ** size ** imp **

- GNU eqn converts some operators to special characters, for example,

input HYPHEN-MINUS becomes output \(mi, unless it is part of a

quoted word. mandoc(1) only does this when the operator is

surrounded by blanks, not when it is part of an unquoted word.

Also, check whether there are more such cases (e.g., +?).

reported by bentley@ 20 Jun 2017 02:04:29 -0600

loc * exist ** algo ** size * imp *

- Primes, opprime, and '

bentley@ Thu, 13 Jul 2017 23:14:20 -0600

--- missing misc features ----------------------------------------------

- man -ks 1,8 route; kn@ Jul 13, 2018 orally

- italic correction (\/) in PostScript mode

Werner LEMBERG on groff at gnu dot org Sun, 10 Nov 2013 12:47:46

loc ** exist ** algo * size * imp *

- When makewhatis(8) encounters a FATAL parse error,

- change the default PAGER to more -Es and use the pager

it silently treats the file as formatted, which makes no sense

even for apropos title line output; req by bapt@

at all for paths like man1/foo.1 - and which also contradicts

what the manual says at the end of the description.

The end result will be ENOENT for file names returned

by mansearch() in manpage.file.

loc * exist * algo * size * imp **

- makewhatis(8) for preformatted pages:

parse the section number from the header line

and compare to the section number from the directory name

loc * exist * algo * size * imp **

- Does makewhatis(8) detect missing NAME sections, missing names,

and missing descriptions in all the file formats?

loc * exist * algo * size * imp ***

- clean up escape sequence handling, creating three classes:

Line 255 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 268 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

--- compatibility checks -----------------------------------------------

- write a configure check for [[:<:]] support and provide some

fallback for whatis(1) when it doesn't work;

Svyatoslav Mishyn Wed, 17 Dec 2014 11:07:10 +0200

- is .Bk implemented correctly in modern groff?

sobrado@ Tue, 19 Apr 2011 22:12:55 +0200

Line 268 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 277 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

- look at AT&T DWB http://www2.research.att.com/sw/download

Carsten Kunze <carsten dot kunze at arcor dot de> has patches

Mon, 4 Aug 2014 17:01:28 +0200

ported version: https://github.com/n-t-roff/DWB3.3

Carsten Kunze Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:21:43 +0200

- look at pages generated from reStructeredText, e.g. devel/mercurial hg(1)

These are a weird mixture of man(7) and custom autogenerated low-level

Line 291 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 302 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/man7/man.html

"Anthony J. Bentley" <anthonyjbentley@gmail.com> 28 Dec 2010 21:58:40 -0700

- check compatibility with COHERENT troff:

http://www.nesssoftware.com/home/mwc/source.php

- check compatibility with the man(7) formatter

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rofl0r/hardcore-utils/master/man.c

Line 299 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 313 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

https://github.com/schmonz/ikiwiki/compare/mandoc

Amitai Schlair Mon, 19 May 2014 14:05:53 -0400

- check features of the Slackware man.conf(5) format

Carsten Kunze Wed, 11 Mar 2015 17:57:24 +0100

************************************************************************

* formatting issues: ugly output

************************************************************************

- .UR can nest inside .TP,

see roff(7) for examples

- revisit empty in-line macros

look at the difference between "Em x Em ." and "Sq x Em ."

Carsten Kunze Fri, 12 Dec 2014 00:15:41 +0100

Line 347 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 367 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

.Vt vs .Vt/.Va vs .Ft/.Va vs .Ft/.Fa ...

from kristaps@ Tue, 08 Jun 2010 11:13:32 +0200

- implicit whitespace around inline equations

example code: where '$times$' denotes matrix multiplication

must not have an HTML line break, nor a blank, before <math>

partial solution: html.c {"math", HTML_NLINSIDE | HTML_INDENT},

bentley@ Thu, 13 Jul 2017 19:00:59 -0600

- in enclosures, mandoc sometimes fancies a bogus end of sentence

reminded by jmc@ Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:13:39 +0059

loc * exist ** algo *** size * imp ***

Line 359 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 385 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

reveals lots of bugs both in groff and mandoc...

reported by bentley@ Wed, 22 May 2013 23:49:30 -0600

--- PDF issues ---------------------------------------------------------

--- PostScript and PDF issues ------------------------------------------

- PDF output doesn't use a monospaced font for .Bd -literal

Example: "mandoc -Tpdf afterboot.8 > output.pdf && pdfviewer output.pdf".

Line 369 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 395 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

instructions from juanfra@ Wed, 11 Jun 2014 02:21:01 +0200

add a new <</Type /Font>> block to the PDF files with /BaseFont /Courier

and change the /Name from /F0 to the new font (/F5 (?)).

re-reported by tb@ Mon, 16 Mar 2015 16:47:21 +0100

loc * exist ** algo ** size * imp **

--- HTML issues --------------------------------------------------------

- <dl><dt><dd> formatting is ugly

- wrap Sh and Ss content into <div>

hints are easy to find on the web, e.g.

Laura Morales <lauretas at mail dot com> 21 Apr 2018 18:10:48 +0200

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1713048/

(Evaluate whether this is really useful and has no adverse

see also matthew@ Fri, 18 Jul 2014 19:25:12 -0700

side effects before implementing; if it is possible,

loc * exist * algo ** size * imp ***

it does seem cleaner.)

loc ** exist ** algo * size * imp ***

- format ".IP *" etc. as <ul> rather than <dl>

https://github.com/Debian/debiman/issues/67

loc ** exist ** algo ** size * imp ***

- .Bf at the beginning of a paragraph inserts a bogus 1ex horizontal

space, see for example random(3). Introduced in

http://mdocml.bsd.lv/cgi-bin/cvsweb/mdoc_html.c.diff?r1=1.91&r2=1.92

reported by deraadt@ Mon, 28 Sep 2015 20:14:13 -0600 (MDT)

loc ** exist ** algo ** size * imp *

- jsg on icb, Nov 3, 2014:

try to guess Xr in man(7) for hyperlinking

and render them with <a class="Xr" href=...>

https://github.com/Debian/debiman/issues/15

loc * exist * algo ** size ** imp **

- The tables used to render the three-part page headers actually force

the width of the <body> to the max-width given for <html>.

Line 389 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 430 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20140925064244&pid=1

loc * exist * algo ** size * imp ***

- consider whether <var> can be used for Ar Dv Er Ev Fa Va.

- generate <img> tags in HTML

from bentley@ Wed, 13 Aug 2014 09:17:55 -0600

idea from florian@ Tue, 7 Apr 2015 00:26:28 +0000

may be possible to implement with .Lk img://something.png alt_text

- check https://github.com/trentm/mdocml

Line 430 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 472 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Probably, this should be fixed somewhere in termp_it_pre(), not sure.

loc * exist ** algo ** size * imp **

- .Nx 1.0a

should be "NetBSD 1.0A", not "NetBSD 1.0a",

see OpenBSD ccdconfig(8).

loc * exist * algo * size * imp **

- In .Bl -tag, if a tag exceeds the right margin and must be continued

on the next line, it must be indented by -width, not width+1;

see "rule block|pass" in OpenBSD ifconfig(8).

loc * exist *** algo ** size * imp **

- When the -width string contains macros, the macros must be rendered

before measuring the width, for example

.Bl -tag -width ".Dv message"

Line 448 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 480 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

The same applies to .Bl -column column widths;

reported again by Nicolas Joly Thu, 1 Mar 2012 13:41:26 +0100 via wiz@ 5 Mar

reported again by Franco Fichtner Fri, 27 Sep 2013 21:02:28 +0200

reported again by Bruce Evans Fri, 17 Feb 2017 21:22:44 +0100 via bapt@

loc *** exist *** algo *** size ** imp ***

An easy partial fix would be to just skip the first word if it starts

with a dot, including any following white space, when measuring.

Line 458 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 491 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

we want three blank lines, not two as in mandoc.

loc ** exist ** algo ** size * imp **

- Header lines of excessive length:

- Sequences of multiple man(7) paragraphs (.PP, .IP) interspersed

Port OpenBSD man_term.c rev. 1.25 to mdoc_term.c

with .ps and .nf/.fi produce execessive blank lines, see libJudy

and document it in mdoc(7) and man(7) COMPATIBILITY

and graphics/dcmtk. The parser reorg may help with this.

found while talking to Chris Bennett

loc * exist * algo * size * imp *

- trailing whitespace must be ignored even when followed by a font escape,

see for example

Line 476 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 507 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

* warning issues

************************************************************************

- check that MANDOCERR_BADTAB is thrown in the right cases,

- When a man(1) command returns no result and there was an -S

i.e. when finding a literal tab character in fill mode,

argument, check the -S argument against the list of valid

and possibly change the wording of the warning message

architectures and say "Unknown architecture AAA" rather than

to refer to fill mode, not literal mode

"No entry for NNN in the manual" if there is no match.

See the mail from Werner LEMBERG on the groff list,

Requires moving the lists of valid architectures out of

Fri, 14 Feb 2014 18:54:42 +0100 (CET)

mdoc_validate.c such that they can be used by main.c.

loc * exist ** algo ** size * imp **

Discussed with jmc@ 10 Aug 2018 19:20:12 +0100.

loc ** exist * algo * size * imp **

- warn about duplicate .Sh/.Ss heads

gre(4): Rename duplicate sections 20 Apr 2018 15:27:33 +0200

loc * exist * algo * size * imp **

- style message about macros inside .Bd -literal and .Dl, in particular

font changing macros like .Cm, .Ar, .Fa (from the mdoclint TODO)

- style message about mismatches between the section number in the

file name (if it is known) and the section number in .Dt

(from the mdoclint TODO)

- style message about NULL without .Dv (from the mdoclint TODO)

- style message about error constants without .Er (from the mdoclint TODO)

- warn when .Sh or .Ss contain other macros

Steffen Nurpmeso, savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?45034

loc * exist * algo * size * imp **

- style message about violations of the convention

.An name Aq Mt localpart@domain in AUTHORS (from the mdoclint TODO)

- warn about attempts to call non-callable macros

Steffen Nurpmeso Tue, 11 Nov 2014 22:55:16 +0100

Note that formatting is inconsistent in groff.

Line 492 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 546 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

all over mdoc_macro.c and all subtly different.

loc ** exist ** algo ** size ** imp **

- warn about "new sentence, new line"

- style message about suspicious uses of - vs. \- vs. \(mi

loc ** exist ** algo *** size * imp **

e.g. -1 is likely wrong (from the mdoclint TODO)

- warn about punctuation - e.g. ',' and ';' - at the beginning

of a text line, if it is likely intended to follow the preceding

output without intervening whitespace, in particular after a

macro line (from the mdoclint TODO)

- mandoc_special does not really check the escape sequence,

but just the overall format

loc ** exist ** algo *** size ** imp **

- integrate mdoclint into mandoc ("end-of-line whitespace" thread)

- makewhatis -p complains about language subdirectories:

from jmc@ Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:12:09 +0100

/usr/local/man//ru: Unknown directory part

from kristaps@ Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:34:53 +0200

from jmc@ Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:45:37 +0059

from kristaps@ Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:02:03 +0200

(mostly done, check what remains)

- -Tlint parser errors and warnings to stdout

to tech@mdocml, naddy@ Wed, 28 Sep 2011 11:21:46 +0200

wait! kristaps@ Sun, 02 Oct 2011 17:12:52 +0200

- for system errors, use errno/strerror/warn/err

************************************************************************

* documentation issues

************************************************************************

- mention hyphenation rules:

- dashes, hyphens, and minus signs in manual pages

breaking at letter-letter in text mode (not macro args)

jmc@ Fri, 28 Mar 2014 07:19:27 +0000

proper hyphenation is unimplemented

- talk about spacing around delimiters

to jmc@, kristaps@ Sat, 23 Apr 2011 17:41:27 +0200

- mark macros as: page structure domain, manual domain, general text domain

is this useful?

Line 535 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 581 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

* performance issues

************************************************************************

- Why are we using MAP_SHARED, not MAP_PRIVATE for mmap(2)?

How does SQLITE_CONFIG_PAGECACHE actually work? Document it!

from kristaps@ Sat, 09 Aug 2014 13:51:36 +0200

Several areas can be cleaned up to make mandoc even faster. These are

- improve hashing mechanism for macros (quite important: performance)

- improve hashing mechanism for characters (not as important)

- the PDF file is HUGE: this can be reduced by using relative offsets

- instead of re-initialising the roff predefined-strings set before each

parse, create a read-only version the first time and copy it

loc * exist ** algo ** size * imp **

************************************************************************

* structural issues

************************************************************************

- Use libz directly instead of forking gunzip(1).

- POSIX says in the documentation of sysconf(3) that PATH_MAX

Suggested by bapt at FreeBSD among others.

is allowed to be so large that it is a bad idea to use it

for sizing static buffers. So use dynamic buffers throughout.

See the file test-PATH_MAX.c for details.

Found by Aaron M. Ucko in the GNU Hurd via Bdale Garbee,

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=829624

- We use the input line number at several places to distinguish

same-line from different-line input. That plainly doesn't work

with user-defined macros, leading to random breakage.

- Is it possible to further simplify ENDBODY_SPACE?

- Find better ways to prevent endless loops

in roff(7) macro and string expansion.

- Finish cleanup of date handling.

- make buffers for parsing functions const

Decide which formats should be recognized where.

christos@ via wiz@ Fri, 18 Dec 2015 17:10:01 +0100

Update both mdoc(7) and man(7) documentation.

Triggered by Tim van der Molen Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:30:45 +0100

- struct mparse refactoring

Steffen Nurpmeso Thu, 04 Sep 2014 12:50:00 +0200

- Consider creating some views that will make the database more

readable from the sqlite3 shell. Consider using them to

abstract from the database structure, too.

suggested by espie@ Sat, 19 Apr 2014 14:52:57 +0200

************************************************************************

* CGI issues

************************************************************************

- Enable HTTP compression by detecting gzip encoding and filtering

output through libz.

- Sandbox (see OpenSSH).

- Privilege separation (see OpenSSH).

- Enable caching support via HTTP 304 and If-Modified-Since.

- Allow for cgi.h to be overridden by CGI environment variables.

Otherwise, binary distributions will inherit the compile-time

behaviour, which is not optimal.

- Have Mac OSX systems automatically disable -static compilation of the

CGI: -static isn't supported.

Line 596 Several areas can be cleaned up to make mandoc even fa

Line 624 Several areas can be cleaned up to make mandoc even fa

* to improve in the groff_mdoc(7) macros

************************************************************************

- .Cd # arch1, arch2 in section 4 pages:

find better way to indicate multiple architectures, maybe:

allow .Dt vgafb 4 "macppc sparc64"

already shown as "Device Drivers Manual (macppc sparc64)"

for apropos, make that "vgafb(4) - macppc # sparc64" instead of "- all"

groff can be made to show multiple arches, too, but it is

tedious to do the string parsing in roff code...

jmc@ 23 Apr 2018 07:24:52 +0100 [man for vgafb(4)...]

loc ** exist ** algo * size * imp ***

- use uname(1) to set doc-default-operating-system at install time

tobimensch Mon, 1 Dec 2014 00:25:07 +0100

- apostrophe (39), circumflex (94), grave (96), tilde (126)

in manuals: \(aq, \(ha, \`, \(ti

Re: [Groff] ASCII Minus Sign in man Pages.

bentley@ 26 Apr 2017 10:02:06 -0600

Do we need to fix existing manuals?

Do we need to fix the definition of the mdoc(7) language?

CVSweb