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Diff for /mandoc/man.7 between version 1.97 and 1.105

version 1.97, 2011/01/25 00:40:14

version 1.105, 2011/08/18 08:58:43

Line 49 prior macros:

\&.SH Macro lines change control state.

Other lines are interpreted within the current state.

.Ed

.Sh INPUT ENCODING

.Sh LANGUAGE SYNTAX

.Nm

documents may contain only graphable 7-bit ASCII characters, the

space character, and the tab character.

.Pp

The back-space character

Blank lines are acceptable; where found, the output will assert a

.Sq \e

vertical space.

indicates the start of an escape sequence for

.Pp

.Sx Comments ,

If the first character of a line is a space, that line is printed

.Sx Predefined Strings ,

with a leading newline.

and

.Sx Special Characters .

.Ss Comments

Text following a

Text following an escaped double-quote

.Sq \e\*q ,

whether in a macro or free-form text line, is ignored to the end of

whether in a macro or text line, is ignored to the end of

line.

A macro line with only a control character and comment escape,

A macro line beginning with a control character and comment escape

.Sq \&.\e\*q ,

.Sq \&.\e\*q

is also ignored.

Macro lines with only a control character and optionally whitespace are

Furthermore,

macro lines with only a control character and optional trailing

whitespace are

stripped from input.

.Pp

Examples:

.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact

\&.\e\*q This is a comment line.

\&.\e\*q The next line is ignored:

\&.

\&.Em Emphasis \e\*q This is also a comment.

.Ed

.Ss Special Characters

Special characters may occur in both macro and free-form lines.

Special characters are used to encode special glyphs and are rendered

differently across output media.

They may occur in both macro and text lines.

Sequences begin with the escape character

.Sq \e

followed by either an open-parenthesis

Line 79 for two-character sequences; an open-bracket

Line 92 for two-character sequences; an open-bracket

.Sq \&[

for n-character sequences (terminated at a close-bracket

.Sq \&] ) ;

or a single one-character sequence.

or a single one character sequence.

.Pp

Examples:

.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact

.It \e(em

em dash

.It \ee

backslash

.El

.Pp

See

.Xr mandoc_char 7

for a complete list.

Examples include

.Sq \e(em

.Pq em-dash

and

.Sq \ee

.Pq back-slash .

.Ss Text Decoration

Terms may be text-decorated using the

.Sq \ef

escape followed by an indicator: B (bold), I (italic), R (Roman), or P

escape followed by an indicator: B (bold), I (italic), R (regular), or P

(revert to previous mode):

.Pp

A numerical representation 3, 2, or 1 (bold, italic, and regular,

.D1 \efBbold\efR \efIitalic\efP

.Pp

A numerical representation 3, 2, or 1 (bold, italic, and Roman,

respectively) may be used instead.

A text decoration is only valid, if specified in free-form text, until

the next macro invocation; if specified within a macro, it's only valid

Line 109 open and close a font scope with each argument.

Line 122 open and close a font scope with each argument.

The

.Sq \ef

attribute is forgotten when entering or exiting a macro block.

.Pp

Examples:

.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact

.It \efBbold\efR

write in bold, then switch to regular

.It \efIitalic\efP

write in italic, then return to previous

.El

.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 \e*(Am

ampersand

.It \e*(Ba

vertical bar

.El

.Pp

These strings are set using

.Xr roff 7 ,

although

.Nm

consists of several pre-set escapes listed in

.Xr mandoc_char 7 .

.Ss Whitespace

Whitespace consists of the space character.

In free-form lines, whitespace is preserved within a line; unescaped

In text lines, whitespace is preserved within a line.

trailing spaces are stripped from input (unless in a literal context).

Blank free-form lines, which may include spaces, are permitted and

rendered as an empty line.

.Pp

In macro lines, whitespace delimits arguments and is discarded.

If arguments are quoted, whitespace within the quotes is retained.

.Ss Dates

The

.Sx \&TH

macro is the only

.Nm

macro that requires a date.

The form for this date is the ISO-8601

standard

.Cm YYYY-MM-DD .

.Ss Scaling Widths

Many macros support scaled widths for their arguments, such as

stipulating a two-inch paragraph indentation with the following:

.Bd -literal -offset indent

\&.HP 2i

.Ed

.Pp

The syntax for scaled widths is

Unescaped trailing spaces are stripped from text line input unless in a

.Sq Li [+-]?[0-9]*.[0-9]*[:unit:]? ,

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

If the first character of a text line is a space, that line is printed

with a leading newline.

.Ss Quotation

Macro arguments may be quoted with double-quotes; in this case,

whitespace within the quotes is retained as part of the argument.

.Pp

A quoted argument begins with a double-quote preceded by whitespace.

The next double-quote not pairwise adjacent to another double-quote

terminates the literal, regardless of surrounding whitespace.

.Pp

In unquoted arguments, space characters can alternatively be included

by preceding them with a backslash

.Pq Sq \e\~ ,

but quoting is usually better for clarity.

.Pp

Note that any quoted text, even if it would cause a macro invocation

when unquoted, is considered literal text.

.Pp

In text lines, quotes are regarded as opaque text.

.Ss Scaling Widths

Many 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 proceeded 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

Line 177 Using anything other than

Line 235 Using anything other than

.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

Line 184 under the default rules of

Line 244 under the default rules of

for vertical spaces and

.Sq u

for horizontal ones.

.Em Note :

.Pp

this differs from

Examples:

.Xr mdoc 7 ,

.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact

which, if a unit is not provided, will instead interpret the string as

.It \&.HP 2i

literal text.

two-inch tagged list indentation

.Pq see Sx \&HP

.It \&.sp 2v

two vertical spaces

.Pq see Sx \&sp

.El

.Ss Sentence Spacing

When composing a manual, make sure that sentences end at the end of

Sentences should terminate at the end of an input line.

a line.

By doing this, a formatter will be able to apply the proper amount of

By doing so, front-ends 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

Line 202 delimiters

Line 266 delimiters

.Sq \&' ,

.Sq \&"

.Pc .

.Pp

Examples:

.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact

Do not end sentences mid-line like this. Instead,

end a sentence like this.

A new sentence gets a new line.

.Ed

.Sh MANUAL STRUCTURE

Each

.Nm

Line 214 appears as the first macro.

Line 285 appears as the first macro.

Beyond

.Sx \&TH ,

at least one macro or text node must appear in the document.

Documents are generally structured as follows:

.Pp

The following is a well-formed skeleton

.Nm

file for a utility

.Qq progname :

.Bd -literal -offset indent

\&.TH FOO 1 2009-10-10

\&.TH PROGNAME 1 2009-10-10

\&.SH NAME

\efBfoo\efR \e(en a description goes here

\efBprogname\efR \e(en a description goes here

\&.\e\*q .SH LIBRARY

\&.\e\*q For sections 2 & 3 only.

\&.\e\*q Not used in OpenBSD.

\&.SH SYNOPSIS

\efBfoo\efR [\efB\e-options\efR] arguments...

\efBprogname\efR [\efB\e-options\efR] arguments...

\&.SH DESCRIPTION

The \efBfoo\efR utility processes files...

\&.\e\*q .SH IMPLEMENTATION NOTES

Line 712 and

Line 787 and

.Ss \&RE

Explicitly close out the scope of a prior

.Sx \&RS .

The default left margin is restored to the state of the original

.Sx \&RS

invocation.

.Ss \&RI

Text is rendered alternately in roman (the default font) and italics.

Whitespace between arguments is omitted in output.

Line 728 See also

Line 806 See also

and

.Sx \&IR .

.Ss \&RS

Begin a part setting the left margin.

Temporarily reset the default left margin.

The left margin controls the offset, following an initial indentation,

to un-indented text such as that of

.Sx \&PP .

This has the following syntax:

.Bd -filled -offset indent

.Pf \. Sx \&Rs

.Pf \. Sx \&RS

.Op Cm width

.Ed

.Pp

Line 743 The

Line 818 The

argument must conform to

.Sx Scaling Widths .

If not specified, the saved or default width is used.

.Pp