===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/mandoc/TODO,v
retrieving revision 1.85
retrieving revision 1.261
diff -u -p -r1.85 -r1.261
--- mandoc/TODO 2011/01/25 15:17:18 1.85
+++ mandoc/TODO 2018/08/10 22:12:44 1.261
@@ -1,40 +1,50 @@
************************************************************************
* Official mandoc TODO.
-* $Id: TODO,v 1.85 2011/01/25 15:17:18 kristaps Exp $
+* $Id: TODO,v 1.261 2018/08/10 22:12:44 schwarze Exp $
************************************************************************
-************************************************************************
-* parser bugs
-************************************************************************
+Many issues are annotated for difficulty as follows:
-- .TP before .SH is still FATAL in man(7)
- reported by brad@ Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:54:54 -0500
+ - loc = locality of the issue
+ * single file issue, affects file only, or very few
+ ** single module issue, affects several files of one module
+ *** cross-module issue, significantly impacts multiple modules
+ and may require substantial changes to internal interfaces
+ - exist = difficulty of the existing code in this area
+ * affected code is straightforward and easy to read and change
+ ** affected code is somewhat complex, but once you understand
+ the design, not particularly difficult to understand
+ *** affected code uses a special, exceptionally tricky design
+ - algo = difficulty of the new algorithm to be written
+ * the required logic and code is straightforward
+ ** the required logic is somewhat complex and needs a careful design
+ *** the required logic is exceptionally tricky,
+ maybe an approach to solve that is not even known yet
+ - size = the amount of code to be written or changed
+ * a small number of lines (at most 100, usually much less)
+ ** a considerable amount of code (several dozen to a few hundred)
+ *** a large amount of code (many hundreds, maybe thousands)
+ - imp = importance of the issue
+ * mostly for completeness
+ ** would be nice to have
+ *** issue causes considerable inconvenience
-- The mdoc(7) parser should handle `\.' as punctuation:
- .Ql .if ${VAR} op something \.
- should produce
- `.if ${VAR} op something'.
- not
- `.if ${VAR} op something .'
- as seen in make(1).
- To escape the dot, one would use `\&.'.
+Obviously, as the issues have not been solved yet, these annotations
+are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.
-- the roff parser doesn't tolerate additional characters between
- a macro and the \} terminating a conditional block, e.g.
- .if n \{
- .br \}
- reported by ulrich spoerlein Tue, 19 Oct 2010 20:39:50 +0200
-
************************************************************************
-* formatter bugs
-************************************************************************
-
-************************************************************************
* missing features
************************************************************************
--- missing roff features ----------------------------------------------
+- \*(.T prints the device being used,
+ see groff_char(7) for an example
+ This is slightly hard because -Tlocale only decides to use ascii or
+ utf8 when initializing the formatter, so the information is not
+ yet available to the preprocessor at the parsing stage.
+ loc ** exist ** algo * size * imp *
+
- .ad (adjust margins)
.ad l -- adjust left margin only (flush left)
.ad r -- adjust right margin only (flush right)
@@ -43,58 +53,93 @@
.na -- temporarily disable adjustment without changing the mode
.ad -- re-enable adjustment without changing the mode
Adjustment mode is ignored while in no-fill mode (.nf).
+ loc *** exist *** algo ** size ** imp ** (parser reorg would help)
-- .it (line traps) occur in mysql(1), yasm_arch(7)
- generated by DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.71.1
- reported by brad@ Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:48:18 -0500
+- .fc (field control)
+ found by naddy@ in xloadimage(1)
+ 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 *
-- xloadimage(1) wants .ti (temporary indent), rep by naddy@
+- .while and .shift
+ found by jca@ in ratpoison(1) Sun, 30 Jun 2013 12:01:09 +0200
+ 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
+- \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 ***
-- pod2man expects `tr' to be implemented for \*(-- to work
+- \\ in high-level macro arguments
+ Currently, \\ is expanded in two situations:
+ 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 *
-- \c (interrupted text) occurs in chat(8)
+- 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
-
- .Bl -column .Xo support is missing
ultimate goal:
restore .Xr and .Dv to
lib/libc/compat-43/sigvec.3
lib/libc/gen/signal.3
lib/libc/sys/sigaction.2
+ loc * exist *** algo *** size * imp **
- edge case: decide how to deal with blk_full bad nesting, e.g.
.Sh .Nm .Bk .Nm .Ek .Sh found by jmc@ in ssh-keygen(1)
from jmc@ Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:10:32 +0100
+ loc * exist *** algo *** size ** imp **
-- \\ is now implemented correctly
- * when defining strings and macros using .ds and .de
- * when parsing roff(7) and man(7) macro arguments
- It does not yet work in mdoc(7) macro arguments
- because libmdoc does not yet use mandoc_getarg().
- Also check what happens in plain text, it must be identical to \e.
+- .Bd -centered implies -filled, not -unfilled, which is not
+ easy to implement; it requires code similar to .ce, which
+ we don't have either.
+ Besides, groff has bug causing text right *before* .Bd -centered
+ to be centered as well.
+ loc *** exist *** algo ** size ** imp ** (parser reorg would help)
- .Bd -filled should not be the same as .Bd -ragged, but align both
the left and right margin. In groff, it is implemented in terms
of .ad b, which we don't have either. Found in cksum(1).
+ loc *** exist *** algo ** size ** imp ** (parser reorg would help)
- implement blank `Bl -column', such as
.Bl -column
.It foo Ta bar
.El
+ loc * exist *** algo *** size * imp *
- explicitly disallow nested `Bl -column', which would clobber internal
flags defined for struct mdoc_macro
+ loc * exist * algo * size * imp **
+- In .Bl -column .It, the end of the line probably has to be regarded
+ as an implicit .Ta, if there could be one, see the following mildly
+ ugly code from login.conf(5):
+ .Bl -column minpasswordlen program xetcxmotd
+ .It path Ta path Ta value of Dv _PATH_DEFPATH
+ .br
+ Default search path.
+ reported by Michal Mazurek
+ via jmc@ Thu, 7 Apr 2011 16:00:53 +0059
+ loc * exist *** algo ** size * imp **
+
- inside `.Bl -column' phrases, punctuation is handled like normal
text, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Fl x . Ta ...' should give "-x -."
@@ -102,48 +147,155 @@
is not safe, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Pf a b .' gives "ab."
but should give "ab ."
-- set a meaningful default if no `Bl' list type is assigned
-
-- have a blank `It' head for `Bl -tag' not puke
-
- 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)
+- support translated section names
+ e.g. x11/scrotwm scrotwm_es.1:21:2: error: NAME section must be first
+ that one uses NOMBRE because it is spanish...
+ deraadt tends to think that section-dependent macro behaviour
+ is a bad idea in the first place, so this may be irrelevant
+ loc ** exist ** algo ** size * imp **
+
+- When there is free text in the SYNOPSIS and that free text contains
+ the .Nm macro, groff somehow understands to treat the .Nm as an in-line
+ macro, while mandoc treats it as a block macro and breaks the line.
+ No idea how the logic for distinguishing in-line and block instances
+ should be, needs investigation.
+ uqs@ Thu, 2 Jun 2011 11:03:51 +0200
+ uqs@ Thu, 2 Jun 2011 11:33:35 +0200
+ loc * exist ** algo *** size * imp **
+
--- missing man features -----------------------------------------------
-- bashbug(1) complains "line scope broken" after
- .SM
- .B something
- should either just work or be a warning
- reported by naddy@
+- .SY and .YS,
+ used by many groff manual pages
-- groff an-ext.tmac macros (.UR, .UE) occur in xine(5)
- reported by brad@ Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
+- preserve punctuation following .ME,
+ see ditroff(7) for an example
+- .TQ tagged paragraph continuation,
+ see groff_diff(7) for examples
+
+- 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 20 Apr 2018 07:33:02 +0200
+ loc ** exist * algo * size ** imp *
+
--- missing tbl features -----------------------------------------------
-- implement basic non-parametric .de to support e.g. sox(1)
- reported by naddy@ Sat, 16 Oct 2010 23:51:57 +0200
- *** sox(1) still doesn't work, tbl(1) errors need investigation
+- 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 **
+
+- implement horizontal and vertical alignment in HTML output
+ pali dot rohar at gmail dot com 16 Jul 2018 13:03:35 +0200
+ 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 *
+
+- The spacing characters `~', `^', and tab are currently ignored,
+ see User's Guide (Second Edition) page 2 section 4.
+ loc * exist * algo ** size * imp **
+
+- Mark and lineup are parsed and ignored,
+ 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 *
+
+- change the default PAGER to more -Es and use the pager
+ even for apropos title line output; req by bapt@
+ loc * exist * algo * size * imp ***
+
- clean up escape sequence handling, creating three classes:
(1) fully implemented, or parsed and ignored without loss of content
(2) unimplemented, potentially causing loss of content
or serious mangling of formatting (e.g. \n) -> ERROR
see textproc/mgdiff(1) for nice examples
(3) undefined, just output the character -> perhaps WARNING
+ loc *** exist ** algo ** size ** imp *** (parser reorg helps)
-- The \t escape sequence is the same as a literal tab, see for example
- the ASCII table in hexdump(1) where
- .Bl -column \&000_nu \&001_so \&002_st \&003_et \&004_eo
- .It \&000\ nul\t001\ soh\t002\ stx\t003\ etx\t004\ eot\t005\ enq
- produces
- 000 nul 001 soh 002 stx 003 etx 004 eot 005 enq
- and the example in oldrdist(1)
+- kettenis wants base roff, ms, and me Fri, 1 Jan 2010 22:13:15 +0100 (CET)
+ loc ** exist ** algo ** size *** imp *
+--- compatibility checks -----------------------------------------------
+
+- is .Bk implemented correctly in modern groff?
+ sobrado@ Tue, 19 Apr 2011 22:12:55 +0200
+
+- compare output to Heirloom roff, Solaris roff, and
+ http://repo.or.cz/w/neatroff.git http://litcave.rudi.ir/
+
+- look at AT&T DWB http://www2.research.att.com/sw/download
+ Carsten Kunze 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
roff stuff. Figure out to what extent we can cope.
@@ -151,31 +303,65 @@
noted by stsp@ Sat, 24 Apr 2010 09:17:55 +0200
reminded by nicm@ Mon, 3 May 2010 09:52:41 +0100
+- look at pages generated from ronn(1) github.com/rtomayko/ronn
+ (based on markdown)
+
+- look at pages generated from Texinfo source by yat2m, e.g. security/gnupg
+ First impression is not that bad.
+
+- look at pages generated by pandoc; see
+ https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/blob/master/src/Text/Pandoc/Writers/Man.hs
+ porting planned by kili@ Thu, 19 Jun 2014 19:46:28 +0200
+
- check compatibility with Plan9:
http://swtch.com/usr/local/plan9/tmac/tmac.an
http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/man7/man.html
"Anthony J. Bentley" 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
+
+- check compatibility with
+ http://ikiwiki.info/plugins/contrib/mandoc/
+ 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
************************************************************************
-- double quotes inside double quotes are escaped by doubling them
- implement this in mdoc(7), too
- so far, we only have it in roff(7) and man(7)
- reminded by millert@ Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:29:52 -0500
+- .UR can nest inside .TP,
+ see roff(7) for examples
-- perl(1) SYNOPSIS looks bad; reported by deraadt@
- 1) man(7) seems to need SYNOPSIS .Nm blocks, too
+- 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
+ loc *** exist *** algo *** size * imp **
+- a column list with blank `Ta' cells triggers a spurious
+ start-with-whitespace printing of a newline
+
+- In .Bl -column, .It a"bc"
+ shows the quotes in groff, but not in mandoc
+ loc * exist *** algo ** size * imp **
+
- In .Bl -column,
.It Em AuthenticationKey Length
ought to render "Key Length" with emphasis, too,
see OpenBSD iked.conf(5).
+ reported again Nicolas Joly via wiz@ Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:20:00 +0200
+ loc * exist *** algo *** size ** imp ***
- empty phrases in .Bl column produce too few blanks
try e.g. .Bl -column It Ta Ta
reported by millert Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:13:46 -0400
+ loc * exist *** algo *** size * imp **
- .%T can have trailing punctuation. Currently, it puts the trailing
punctuation into a trailing MDOC_TEXT element inside its own scope.
@@ -185,128 +371,282 @@
slurp all arguments into one single text element - and one feature
of in_line() - put trailing punctuation out of scope.
Found in mount_nfs(8) and exports(5), search for "Appendix".
+ loc ** exist ** algo *** size * imp **
+- Trailing punctuation after .%T triggers EOS spacing, at least
+ outside .Rs (eek!). Simply setting ARGSFL_DELIM for .%T is not
+ the right solution, it sends mandoc into an endless loop.
+ reported by Nicolas Joly Sat, 17 Nov 2012 11:49:54 +0100
+ loc * exist ** algo ** size * imp **
+
+- global variables in the SYNOPSIS of section 3 pages
+ .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