mandoc/TODO - diff

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Up to [cvsweb.bsd.lv] / mandoc

Diff for /mandoc/TODO between version 1.219 and 1.270

version 1.219, 2016/07/19 21:31:55

version 1.270, 2018/09/23 05:34:58

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)

#1 most important issue naddy@ Mon, 16 Feb 2015 20:59:17 +0100

ircbug(1) 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

#2 most important issue naddy@ Mon, 16 Feb 2015 20:59:17 +0100

found in cclive(1) nasm(1) bogofilter(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 **

- \n(.$ macro argument count number register; ocserv(8) by autogen

found by sthen@ Thu, 19 Feb 2015 22:03:01 +0000

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

Line 119 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 75 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

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

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

- using undefined strings or macros defines them to be empty

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

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

trivial even if not usually appearing in manual pages, gracefully

loc * exist * algo * size * imp *

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 ----------------------------------------------

Line 178 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 136 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 204 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 158 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 -----------------------------------------------

- horizontal lines in the layout still consume data cells

and can be mixed with actual data on the same table line

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

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

- the "w" layout option is ignored

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

loc * exist * algo * size * imp **

- 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 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.

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 -----------------------------------------------

- Use a Unicode character for sqrt() in eqn output?

Suggested by an attendee during EuroBSDCon 2018.

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

Found in the discussion at CDBUG 2015.

Suggested by Avi Weinstock.

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

Line 228 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 *

Line 265 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 251 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

even for apropos title line output; req by bapt@

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:

(1) fully implemented, or parsed and ignored without loss of content

(2) unimplemented, potentially causing loss of content

Line 285 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 262 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

- kettenis wants base roff, ms, and me Fri, 1 Jan 2010 22:13:15 +0100 (CET)

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

- Vsevolod Stakhov (FreeBSD) needs either a markdown output formatter

for mandoc -mdoc or a markdown to mdoc converter because they

have to maintain manuals needed both in markdown and mdoc format.

Look at the libsoldout (markdown -> whatever)

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

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

- is .Bk implemented correctly in modern groff?

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

Line 273 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 336 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 309 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

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

Line 384 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 360 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 396 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 378 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 406 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 388 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

- table of content at the top of HTML (and perhaps ps/pdf) pages

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

only if there are at least two (or three?) non-standard sections

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

only if the new option -O toc is given

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

suggested by an attendee during EuroBSDCon 2018

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

- In -man -Thtml, .nf does not preserve indentation.

- support -O man with two arguments, typically using the first for

It should either convert blanks to  

a local tree (like the release pages on mandoc.bsd.lv) and the

or use <pre> rather than <div> (like .Bd -literal does).

second for a remote tree (e.g. man.openbsd.org).

Reported by afresh1@ 12 Apr 2016 14:35:45 -0700

Probable syntax: -O man=first;second

Suggested by kristaps@ during EuroBSDCon 2018.

- wrap Sh and Ss content into <div>

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

(Evaluate whether this is really useful and has no adverse

side effects before implementing; if it is possible,

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

Line 429 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 423 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

- 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 437 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 434 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.

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

- generate <img> tags in HTML

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

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

Line 482 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 476 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 500 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 484 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 510 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 495 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:

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

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

found while talking to Chris Bennett

loc * exist * algo * size * imp *

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

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

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

Line 529 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 508 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

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

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

* portability

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

- systems having UTF-8 but not en_US.UTF-8

call locale(1) from ./configure, select a UTF-8-locale,

and use that for test-wchar.c and term_ascii.c

to Markus Waldeck Sat, 18 Jul 2015 01:55:37 +0200

loc * exist * algo * size * imp *

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

* warning issues

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

- provide a way in mandoc(1) to warn about broken .Xr links;

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

probably cannot be on by default in -Tlint because it needs

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

to access the manpath and mandoc.db(3) after parsing.

architectures and say "Unknown architecture AAA" rather than

asked for by jmc@ Fri, 4 Dec 2015 22:39:40 +0000

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

Requires moving the lists of valid architectures out of

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

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

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

- Report errors in -O suboption parsing.

- 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 **

- check that MANDOCERR_BADTAB is thrown in the right cases,

- style message about violations of the convention

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

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

and possibly change the wording of the warning message

to refer to fill mode, not literal mode

See the mail from Werner LEMBERG on the groff list,

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

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

- warn about attempts to call non-callable macros

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

Line 570 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 550 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

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

* 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 611 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

Line 585 are mere guesses, and some may be wrong.

* performance issues

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

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

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

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

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

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

Line 651 Several areas can be cleaned up to make mandoc even fa

Line 619 Several areas can be cleaned up to make mandoc even fa

- 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 663 Several areas can be cleaned up to make mandoc even fa

Line 628 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