Annotation of mandoc/mandoc.1, Revision 1.272
1.272 ! schwarze 1: .\" $Id: mandoc.1,v 1.271 2025/06/26 17:26:23 schwarze Exp $
1.1 kristaps 2: .\"
1.268 schwarze 3: .\" Copyright (c) 2012, 2014-2023, 2025 Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>
1.92 schwarze 4: .\" Copyright (c) 2009, 2010, 2011 Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@bsd.lv>
1.1 kristaps 5: .\"
6: .\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
1.16 kristaps 7: .\" purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
8: .\" copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
1.1 kristaps 9: .\"
1.16 kristaps 10: .\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
11: .\" WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
12: .\" MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
13: .\" ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
14: .\" WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
15: .\" ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
16: .\" OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
1.1 kristaps 17: .\"
1.272 ! schwarze 18: .Dd $Mdocdate: June 26 2025 $
1.14 kristaps 19: .Dt MANDOC 1
1.1 kristaps 20: .Os
21: .Sh NAME
22: .Nm mandoc
1.181 schwarze 23: .Nd format manual pages
1.1 kristaps 24: .Sh SYNOPSIS
25: .Nm mandoc
1.184 schwarze 26: .Op Fl ac
1.156 schwarze 27: .Op Fl I Cm os Ns = Ns Ar name
28: .Op Fl K Ar encoding
1.180 schwarze 29: .Op Fl mdoc | man
1.184 schwarze 30: .Op Fl O Ar options
1.156 schwarze 31: .Op Fl T Ar output
32: .Op Fl W Ar level
1.89 kristaps 33: .Op Ar
1.1 kristaps 34: .Sh DESCRIPTION
35: The
36: .Nm
1.224 schwarze 37: utility formats manual pages for display.
1.100 kristaps 38: .Pp
39: By default,
40: .Nm
41: reads
42: .Xr mdoc 7
43: or
44: .Xr man 7
1.180 schwarze 45: text from stdin and produces
1.156 schwarze 46: .Fl T Cm locale
1.100 kristaps 47: output.
48: .Pp
1.109 schwarze 49: The options are as follows:
1.19 kristaps 50: .Bl -tag -width Ds
1.107 schwarze 51: .It Fl a
52: If the standard output is a terminal device and
53: .Fl c
54: is not specified, use
1.245 schwarze 55: .Xr less 1
1.107 schwarze 56: to paginate the output, just like
57: .Xr man 1
58: would.
59: .It Fl c
60: Copy the formatted manual pages to the standard output without using
1.245 schwarze 61: .Xr less 1
1.107 schwarze 62: to paginate them.
63: This is the default.
64: It can be specified to override
65: .Fl a .
1.156 schwarze 66: .It Fl I Cm os Ns = Ns Ar name
1.101 schwarze 67: Override the default operating system
68: .Ar name
69: for the
70: .Xr mdoc 7
1.180 schwarze 71: .Ic \&Os
1.130 schwarze 72: and for the
73: .Xr man 7
1.180 schwarze 74: .Ic \&TH
1.101 schwarze 75: macro.
1.156 schwarze 76: .It Fl K Ar encoding
1.119 schwarze 77: Specify the input encoding.
78: The supported
79: .Ar encoding
80: arguments are
81: .Cm us-ascii ,
82: .Cm iso-8859-1 ,
83: and
84: .Cm utf-8 .
1.176 schwarze 85: If not specified, autodetection uses the first match in the following
86: list:
87: .Bl -enum
88: .It
89: If the first three bytes of the input file are the UTF-8 byte order
90: mark (BOM, 0xefbbbf), input is interpreted as
91: .Cm utf-8 .
92: .It
93: If the first or second line of the input file matches the
1.119 schwarze 94: .Sy emacs
95: mode line format
96: .Pp
97: .D1 .\e" -*- Oo ...; Oc coding: Ar encoding ; No -*-
1.176 schwarze 98: .Pp
99: then input is interpreted according to
100: .Ar encoding .
101: .It
102: If the first non-ASCII byte in the file introduces a valid UTF-8
103: sequence, input is interpreted as
104: .Cm utf-8 .
105: .It
106: Otherwise, input is interpreted as
107: .Cm iso-8859-1 .
1.119 schwarze 108: .El
1.180 schwarze 109: .It Fl mdoc | man
110: With
111: .Fl mdoc ,
112: all input files are interpreted as
113: .Xr mdoc 7 .
114: With
115: .Fl man ,
116: all input files are interpreted as
117: .Xr man 7 .
118: By default, the input language is automatically detected for each file:
1.221 schwarze 119: if the first macro is
1.180 schwarze 120: .Ic \&Dd
121: or
122: .Ic \&Dt ,
123: the
124: .Xr mdoc 7
125: parser is used; otherwise, the
126: .Xr man 7
127: parser is used.
128: With other arguments,
129: .Fl m
130: is silently ignored.
1.184 schwarze 131: .It Fl O Ar options
1.57 kristaps 132: Comma-separated output options.
1.224 schwarze 133: See the descriptions of the individual output formats for supported
134: .Ar options .
1.156 schwarze 135: .It Fl T Ar output
1.224 schwarze 136: Select the output format.
137: Supported values for the
138: .Ar output
139: argument are
140: .Cm ascii ,
141: .Cm html ,
142: the default of
143: .Cm locale ,
144: .Cm man ,
145: .Cm markdown ,
146: .Cm pdf ,
147: .Cm ps ,
148: .Cm tree ,
149: and
150: .Cm utf8 .
151: .Pp
152: The special
153: .Fl T Cm lint
154: mode only parses the input and produces no output.
155: It implies
156: .Fl W Cm all
157: and redirects parser messages, which usually appear on standard
158: error output, to standard output.
1.156 schwarze 159: .It Fl W Ar level
1.77 schwarze 160: Specify the minimum message
161: .Ar level
162: to be reported on the standard error output and to affect the exit status.
163: The
164: .Ar level
165: can be
1.202 schwarze 166: .Cm base ,
1.185 schwarze 167: .Cm style ,
1.133 schwarze 168: .Cm warning ,
169: .Cm error ,
1.77 schwarze 170: or
1.202 schwarze 171: .Cm unsupp .
172: The
173: .Cm base
174: level automatically derives the operating system from the contents of the
175: .Ic \&Os
176: macro, from the
177: .Fl Ios
178: command line option, or from the
179: .Xr uname 3
180: return value.
181: The levels
182: .Cm openbsd
183: and
184: .Cm netbsd
185: are variants of
186: .Cm base
187: that bypass autodetection and request validation of base system
188: conventions for a particular operating system.
189: The level
1.132 schwarze 190: .Cm all
1.77 schwarze 191: is an alias for
1.202 schwarze 192: .Cm base .
1.132 schwarze 193: By default,
194: .Nm
195: is silent.
1.77 schwarze 196: See
197: .Sx EXIT STATUS
198: and
199: .Sx DIAGNOSTICS
200: for details.
201: .Pp
202: The special option
1.156 schwarze 203: .Fl W Cm stop
1.77 schwarze 204: tells
205: .Nm
206: to exit after parsing a file that causes warnings or errors of at least
207: the requested level.
208: No formatted output will be produced from that file.
209: If both a
210: .Ar level
211: and
212: .Cm stop
213: are requested, they can be joined with a comma, for example
1.156 schwarze 214: .Fl W Cm error , Ns Cm stop .
1.58 kristaps 215: .It Ar file
1.224 schwarze 216: Read from the given input file.
217: If multiple files are specified, they are processed in the given order.
218: If unspecified,
1.2 kristaps 219: .Nm
1.224 schwarze 220: reads from standard input.
1.1 kristaps 221: .El
1.109 schwarze 222: .Pp
1.183 schwarze 223: The options
224: .Fl fhklw
1.239 schwarze 225: are also supported and are documented in
226: .Xr man 1 .
1.109 schwarze 227: In
228: .Fl f
229: and
230: .Fl k
231: mode,
232: .Nm
233: also supports the options
1.183 schwarze 234: .Fl CMmOSs
1.109 schwarze 235: described in the
236: .Xr apropos 1
237: manual.
1.182 schwarze 238: The options
239: .Fl fkl
240: are mutually exclusive and override each other.
1.66 kristaps 241: .Ss ASCII Output
1.224 schwarze 242: Use
1.156 schwarze 243: .Fl T Cm ascii
1.224 schwarze 244: to force text output in 7-bit ASCII character encoding documented in the
245: .Xr ascii 7
246: manual page, ignoring the
247: .Xr locale 1
248: set in the environment.
1.66 kristaps 249: .Pp
250: Font styles are applied by using back-spaced encoding such that an
251: underlined character
252: .Sq c
253: is rendered as
254: .Sq _ Ns \e[bs] Ns c ,
255: where
256: .Sq \e[bs]
257: is the back-space character number 8.
258: Emboldened characters are rendered as
259: .Sq c Ns \e[bs] Ns c .
1.235 schwarze 260: This markup is typically converted to appropriate terminal sequences by
261: the pager or
262: .Xr ul 1 .
263: To remove the markup, pipe the output to
264: .Xr col 1
265: .Fl b
266: instead.
1.66 kristaps 267: .Pp
268: The special characters documented in
269: .Xr mandoc_char 7
270: are rendered best-effort in an ASCII equivalent.
1.237 schwarze 271: In particular, opening and closing
272: .Sq single quotes
273: are represented as characters number 0x60 and 0x27, respectively,
274: which agrees with all ASCII standards from 1965 to the latest
275: revision (2012) and which matches the traditional way in which
276: .Xr roff 7
277: formatters represent single quotes in ASCII output.
278: This correct ASCII rendering may look strange with modern
279: Unicode-compatible fonts because contrary to ASCII, Unicode uses
280: the code point U+0060 for the grave accent only, never for an opening
281: quote.
1.66 kristaps 282: .Pp
283: The following
284: .Fl O
285: arguments are accepted:
1.19 kristaps 286: .Bl -tag -width Ds
1.98 schwarze 287: .It Cm indent Ns = Ns Ar indent
288: The left margin for normal text is set to
289: .Ar indent
1.267 schwarze 290: blank characters instead of the default of five.
1.98 schwarze 291: Increasing this is not recommended; it may result in degraded formatting,
1.99 schwarze 292: for example overfull lines or ugly line breaks.
1.223 schwarze 293: When output is to a pager on a terminal that is less than 66 columns
294: wide, the default is reduced to three columns.
1.231 schwarze 295: .It Cm tag Ns Op = Ns Ar term
296: If the formatted manual page is opened in a pager,
297: go to the definition of the
298: .Ar term
299: rather than showing the manual page from the beginning.
300: If no
301: .Ar term
302: is specified, reuse the first command line argument that is not a
303: .Ar section
304: number.
1.236 schwarze 305: If that argument is in
306: .Xr apropos 1
307: .Ar key Ns = Ns Ar val
308: format, only the
309: .Ar val
310: is used rather than the argument as a whole.
311: This is useful for commands like
312: .Ql man -akO tag Ic=ulimit
313: to search for a keyword and jump right to its definition
314: in the matching manual pages.
1.66 kristaps 315: .It Cm width Ns = Ns Ar width
316: The output width is set to
1.223 schwarze 317: .Ar width
318: instead of the default of 78.
319: When output is to a pager on a terminal that is less than 79 columns
320: wide, the default is reduced to one less than the terminal width.
321: In any case, lines that are output in literal mode are never wrapped
322: and may exceed the output width.
1.1 kristaps 323: .El
1.66 kristaps 324: .Ss HTML Output
325: Output produced by
1.156 schwarze 326: .Fl T Cm html
1.114 kristaps 327: conforms to HTML5 using optional self-closing tags.
1.116 kristaps 328: Equations rendered from
329: .Xr eqn 7
330: blocks use MathML.
1.224 schwarze 331: Non-ASCII characters are rendered
1.225 schwarze 332: as hexadecimal Unicode character references.
1.66 kristaps 333: .Pp
334: The following
1.64 kristaps 335: .Fl O
1.66 kristaps 336: arguments are accepted:
1.37 kristaps 337: .Bl -tag -width Ds
1.94 kristaps 338: .It Cm fragment
1.123 schwarze 339: Omit the <!DOCTYPE> declaration and the <html>, <head>, and <body>
340: elements and only emit the subtree below the <body> element.
1.94 kristaps 341: The
342: .Cm style
1.97 schwarze 343: argument will be ignored.
1.94 kristaps 344: This is useful when embedding manual content within existing documents.
1.64 kristaps 345: .It Cm includes Ns = Ns Ar fmt
1.40 kristaps 346: The string
347: .Ar fmt ,
1.49 kristaps 348: for example,
1.40 kristaps 349: .Ar ../src/%I.html ,
350: is used as a template for linked header files (usually via the
1.180 schwarze 351: .Ic \&In
1.57 kristaps 352: macro).
353: Instances of
1.43 kristaps 354: .Sq \&%I
1.57 kristaps 355: are replaced with the include filename.
356: The default is not to present a
1.40 kristaps 357: hyperlink.
1.229 schwarze 358: .It Cm man Ns = Ns Ar fmt Ns Op ; Ns Ar fmt
1.39 kristaps 359: The string
360: .Ar fmt ,
1.49 kristaps 361: for example,
1.39 kristaps 362: .Ar ../html%S/%N.%S.html ,
363: is used as a template for linked manuals (usually via the
1.180 schwarze 364: .Ic \&Xr
1.57 kristaps 365: macro).
366: Instances of
1.43 kristaps 367: .Sq \&%N
1.40 kristaps 368: and
369: .Sq %S
370: are replaced with the linked manual's name and section, respectively.
1.57 kristaps 371: If no section is included, section 1 is assumed.
372: The default is not to
1.40 kristaps 373: present a hyperlink.
1.229 schwarze 374: If two formats are given and a file
375: .Ar %N.%S
376: exists in the current directory, the first format is used;
377: otherwise, the second format is used.
1.64 kristaps 378: .It Cm style Ns = Ns Ar style.css
1.58 kristaps 379: The file
380: .Ar style.css
1.265 schwarze 381: is used as an external stylesheet.
1.58 kristaps 382: This must be a valid absolute or
383: relative URI.
1.265 schwarze 384: .Pp
385: Using the file
386: .Pa mandoc.css
387: that is distributed with
388: .Nm
389: is recommended.
390: It provides an appearance similar to terminal output with some additional
391: features specific to
392: .Nm
393: HTML output, in particular making anchor locations that support
394: deep linking stand out visually by putting a dotted line under them,
395: providing tooltips showing the semantic function of elements (macro
396: names), providing some simple aspects of responsive web design, and
397: providing simple support for users who prefer a dark color scheme.
398: .Pp
399: Using a custom CSS file is possible, but writing it requires
400: proficiency in all of the languages HTML 5, CSS 4, and
401: .Xr mdoc 7
402: and familiarity with the
403: .Nm Ns -specific
404: classes used in
405: .Pa mandoc.css .
406: Besides, while the file
407: .Pa mandoc.css
408: is always adapted to the HTML output generated by the
409: .Nm
410: version it is distributed with, maintaining a custom CSS file usually
411: requires adaptations each time
412: .Nm
413: is upgraded to a new version.
414: .Pp
415: If a stylesheet is not specified with
416: .Fl O Cm style ,
417: .Fl T Cm html
418: embeds a minimal stylesheet into the HTML output, mostly to select
419: adequate font-style and font-weight attributes for various macros.
420: The result is readable in any graphical or text-based web browser,
421: but does not aim for looking similar to terminal output.
422: Instead, formatting is mostly left to browser defaults
423: and to user settings in the browser configuration.
1.244 schwarze 424: .It Cm tag Ns Op = Ns Ar term
425: Same syntax and semantics as for
426: .Sx ASCII Output .
427: This is implemented by passing a
428: .Ic file://
429: URI ending in a fragment identifier to the pager
430: rather than passing merely a file name.
431: When using this argument, use a pager supporting such URIs, for example
432: .Bd -literal -offset 3n
433: MANPAGER='lynx -force_html' man -T html -O tag=MANPAGER man
434: MANPAGER='w3m -T text/html' man -T html -O tag=toc mandoc
435: .Ed
436: .Pp
1.246 schwarze 437: Consequently, for HTML output, this argument does not work with
1.244 schwarze 438: .Xr more 1
439: or
440: .Xr less 1 .
1.246 schwarze 441: For example,
442: .Ql MANPAGER=less man -T html -O tag=toc mandoc
443: does not work because
444: .Xr less 1
445: does not support
446: .Ic file://
447: URIs.
1.230 schwarze 448: .It Cm toc
449: If an input file contains at least two non-standard sections,
450: print a table of contents near the beginning of the output.
1.61 kristaps 451: .El
1.93 schwarze 452: .Ss Locale Output
1.224 schwarze 453: By default,
454: .Nm
455: automatically selects UTF-8 or ASCII output according to the current
456: .Xr locale 1 .
457: If any of the environment variables
458: .Ev LC_ALL ,
459: .Ev LC_CTYPE ,
460: or
461: .Ev LANG
462: are set and the first one that is set
463: selects the UTF-8 character encoding, it produces
464: .Sx UTF-8 Output ;
465: otherwise, it falls back to
466: .Sx ASCII Output .
467: This output mode can also be selected explicitly with
1.156 schwarze 468: .Fl T Cm locale .
1.95 kristaps 469: .Ss Man Output
1.224 schwarze 470: Use
471: .Fl T Cm man
472: to translate
473: .Xr mdoc 7
474: input into
1.95 kristaps 475: .Xr man 7
476: output format.
1.102 schwarze 477: This is useful for distributing manual sources to legacy systems
1.96 kristaps 478: lacking
1.95 kristaps 479: .Xr mdoc 7
480: formatters.
1.242 schwarze 481: Embedded
482: .Xr eqn 7
483: and
484: .Xr tbl 7
485: code is not supported.
1.95 kristaps 486: .Pp
1.224 schwarze 487: If the input format of a file is
1.95 kristaps 488: .Xr man 7 ,
1.247 schwarze 489: the input is copied to the output.
1.97 schwarze 490: The parser is also run, and as usual, the
491: .Fl W
492: level controls which
493: .Sx DIAGNOSTICS
494: are displayed before copying the input to the output.
1.175 schwarze 495: .Ss Markdown Output
1.224 schwarze 496: Use
497: .Fl T Cm markdown
498: to translate
1.175 schwarze 499: .Xr mdoc 7
1.224 schwarze 500: input to the markdown format conforming to
1.256 schwarze 501: .Lk https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax.text\
1.175 schwarze 502: "John Gruber's 2004 specification" .
1.178 schwarze 503: The output also almost conforms to the
1.256 schwarze 504: .Lk https://commonmark.org/ CommonMark
1.178 schwarze 505: specification.
506: .Pp
507: The character set used for the markdown output is ASCII.
508: Non-ASCII characters are encoded as HTML entities.
509: Since that is not possible in literal font contexts, because these
510: are rendered as code spans and code blocks in the markdown output,
511: non-ASCII characters are transliterated to ASCII approximations in
512: these contexts.
1.175 schwarze 513: .Pp
514: Markdown is a very weak markup language, so all semantic markup is
515: lost, and even part of the presentational markup may be lost.
516: Do not use this as an intermediate step in converting to HTML;
517: instead, use
518: .Fl T Cm html
519: directly.
520: .Pp
521: The
522: .Xr man 7 ,
523: .Xr tbl 7 ,
524: and
525: .Xr eqn 7
526: input languages are not supported by
527: .Fl T Cm markdown
528: output mode.
1.93 schwarze 529: .Ss PDF Output
530: PDF-1.1 output may be generated by
1.156 schwarze 531: .Fl T Cm pdf .
1.93 schwarze 532: See
533: .Sx PostScript Output
534: for
535: .Fl O
536: arguments and defaults.
1.62 kristaps 537: .Ss PostScript Output
1.65 kristaps 538: PostScript
539: .Qq Adobe-3.0
540: Level-2 pages may be generated by
1.156 schwarze 541: .Fl T Cm ps .
1.67 kristaps 542: Output pages default to letter sized and are rendered in the Times font
1.70 kristaps 543: family, 11-point.
544: Margins are calculated as 1/9 the page length and width.
1.71 kristaps 545: Line-height is 1.4m.
1.66 kristaps 546: .Pp
547: Special characters are rendered as in
548: .Sx ASCII Output .
549: .Pp
550: The following
551: .Fl O
552: arguments are accepted:
553: .Bl -tag -width Ds
554: .It Cm paper Ns = Ns Ar name
555: The paper size
556: .Ar name
557: may be one of
1.68 kristaps 558: .Ar a3 ,
559: .Ar a4 ,
560: .Ar a5 ,
561: .Ar legal ,
1.66 kristaps 562: or
563: .Ar letter .
1.68 kristaps 564: You may also manually specify dimensions as
565: .Ar NNxNN ,
566: width by height in millimetres.
567: If an unknown value is encountered,
568: .Ar letter
569: is used.
1.66 kristaps 570: .El
1.224 schwarze 571: .Ss UTF-8 Output
1.93 schwarze 572: Use
1.156 schwarze 573: .Fl T Cm utf8
1.224 schwarze 574: to force text output in UTF-8 multi-byte character encoding,
575: ignoring the
576: .Xr locale 1
577: settings in the environment.
1.73 kristaps 578: See
1.224 schwarze 579: .Sx ASCII Output
580: regarding font styles and
581: .Fl O
582: arguments.
583: .Pp
584: On operating systems lacking locale or wide character support, and
585: on those where the internal character representation is not UCS-4,
586: .Nm
587: always falls back to
588: .Sx ASCII Output .
1.161 schwarze 589: .Ss Syntax tree output
590: Use
591: .Fl T Cm tree
592: to show a human readable representation of the syntax tree.
593: It is useful for debugging the source code of manual pages.
1.162 schwarze 594: The exact format is subject to change, so don't write parsers for it.
1.170 schwarze 595: .Pp
596: The first paragraph shows meta data found in the
597: .Xr mdoc 7
598: prologue, on the
599: .Xr man 7
600: .Ic \&TH
601: line, or the fallbacks used.
602: .Pp
603: In the tree dump, each output line shows one syntax tree node.
1.161 schwarze 604: Child nodes are indented with respect to their parent node.
605: The columns are:
606: .Pp
607: .Bl -enum -compact
608: .It
609: For macro nodes, the macro name; for text and
610: .Xr tbl 7
1.162 schwarze 611: nodes, the content.
612: There is a special format for
1.161 schwarze 613: .Xr eqn 7
614: nodes.
615: .It
616: Node type (text, elem, block, head, body, body-end, tail, tbl, eqn).
617: .It
618: Flags:
619: .Bl -dash -compact
620: .It
621: An opening parenthesis if the node is an opening delimiter.
622: .It
623: An asterisk if the node starts a new input line.
624: .It
625: The input line number (starting at one).
626: .It
627: A colon.
628: .It
629: The input column number (starting at one).
630: .It
631: A closing parenthesis if the node is a closing delimiter.
632: .It
633: A full stop if the node ends a sentence.
1.169 schwarze 634: .It
1.174 schwarze 635: BROKEN if the node is a block broken by another block.
636: .It
1.169 schwarze 637: NOSRC if the node is not in the input file,
638: but automatically generated from macros.
639: .It
640: NOPRT if the node is not supposed to generate output
641: for any output format.
1.161 schwarze 642: .El
1.174 schwarze 643: .El
644: .Pp
645: The following
646: .Fl O
647: argument is accepted:
648: .Bl -tag -width Ds
649: .It Cm noval
650: Skip validation and show the unvalidated syntax tree.
651: This can help to find out whether a given behaviour is caused by
652: the parser or by the validator.
653: Meta data is not available in this case.
1.161 schwarze 654: .El
1.108 schwarze 655: .Sh ENVIRONMENT
656: .Bl -tag -width MANPAGER
1.224 schwarze 657: .It Ev LC_CTYPE
658: The character encoding
659: .Xr locale 1 .
660: When
661: .Sx Locale Output
662: is selected, it decides whether to use ASCII or UTF-8 output format.
663: It never affects the interpretation of input files.
1.108 schwarze 664: .It Ev MANPAGER
665: Any non-empty value of the environment variable
666: .Ev MANPAGER
1.179 schwarze 667: is used instead of the standard pagination program,
1.245 schwarze 668: .Xr less 1 ;
1.179 schwarze 669: see
670: .Xr man 1
671: for details.
672: Only used if
673: .Fl a
674: or
675: .Fl l
676: is specified.
1.108 schwarze 677: .It Ev PAGER
678: Specifies the pagination program to use when
679: .Ev MANPAGER
680: is not defined.
681: If neither PAGER nor MANPAGER is defined,
1.245 schwarze 682: .Xr less 1
1.179 schwarze 683: is used.
684: Only used if
685: .Fl a
686: or
687: .Fl l
688: is specified.
1.108 schwarze 689: .El
1.77 schwarze 690: .Sh EXIT STATUS
691: The
692: .Nm
693: utility exits with one of the following values, controlled by the message
694: .Ar level
695: associated with the
696: .Fl W
697: option:
698: .Pp
699: .Bl -tag -width Ds -compact
700: .It 0
1.202 schwarze 701: No base system convention violations, style suggestions, warnings,
702: or errors occurred, or those that did were ignored because they
703: were lower than the requested
1.77 schwarze 704: .Ar level .
1.185 schwarze 705: .It 1
1.202 schwarze 706: At least one base system convention violation or style suggestion
707: occurred, but no warning or error, and
708: .Fl W Cm base
709: or
1.185 schwarze 710: .Fl W Cm style
711: was specified.
1.77 schwarze 712: .It 2
713: At least one warning occurred, but no error, and
1.156 schwarze 714: .Fl W Cm warning
1.202 schwarze 715: or a lower
716: .Ar level
717: was requested.
1.77 schwarze 718: .It 3
1.133 schwarze 719: At least one parsing error occurred,
720: but no unsupported feature was encountered, and
1.156 schwarze 721: .Fl W Cm error
1.185 schwarze 722: or a lower
723: .Ar level
724: was requested.
1.133 schwarze 725: .It 4
1.134 schwarze 726: At least one unsupported feature was encountered, and
1.185 schwarze 727: .Fl W Cm unsupp
728: or a lower
729: .Ar level
730: was requested.
1.77 schwarze 731: .It 5
732: Invalid command line arguments were specified.
733: No input files have been read.
734: .It 6
1.131 schwarze 735: An operating system error occurred, for example exhaustion
736: of memory, file descriptors, or process table entries.
1.240 schwarze 737: Such errors may cause
1.77 schwarze 738: .Nm
739: to exit at once, possibly in the middle of parsing or formatting a file.
740: .El
741: .Pp
742: Note that selecting
1.156 schwarze 743: .Fl T Cm lint
1.77 schwarze 744: output mode implies
1.202 schwarze 745: .Fl W Cm all .
1.1 kristaps 746: .Sh EXAMPLES
1.13 kristaps 747: To page manuals to the terminal:
1.1 kristaps 748: .Pp
1.255 schwarze 749: .Dl $ mandoc -a mandoc.1 man.1 apropos.1 makewhatis.8
1.28 kristaps 750: .Pp
1.41 kristaps 751: To produce HTML manuals with
1.234 schwarze 752: .Pa /usr/share/misc/mandoc.css
1.265 schwarze 753: as the stylesheet:
1.38 kristaps 754: .Pp
1.234 schwarze 755: .Dl $ mandoc \-T html -O style=/usr/share/misc/mandoc.css mdoc.7 > mdoc.7.html
1.38 kristaps 756: .Pp
1.28 kristaps 757: To check over a large set of manuals:
758: .Pp
1.158 schwarze 759: .Dl $ mandoc \-T lint \(gafind /usr/src -name \e*\e.[1-9]\(ga
1.66 kristaps 760: .Pp
761: To produce a series of PostScript manuals for A4 paper:
762: .Pp
1.234 schwarze 763: .Dl $ mandoc \-T ps \-O paper=a4 mdoc.7 man.7 > manuals.ps
1.91 schwarze 764: .Pp
765: Convert a modern
766: .Xr mdoc 7
767: manual to the older
768: .Xr man 7
769: format, for use on systems lacking an
770: .Xr mdoc 7
771: parser:
772: .Pp
1.234 schwarze 773: .Dl $ mandoc \-T man foo.mdoc > foo.man
1.77 schwarze 774: .Sh DIAGNOSTICS
1.106 schwarze 775: Messages displayed by
776: .Nm
777: follow this format:
1.202 schwarze 778: .Bd -ragged -offset indent
1.205 schwarze 779: .Nm :
1.264 schwarze 780: .Ar file : Ns Ar line : Ns Ar column : level : message : macro argument ...
1.202 schwarze 781: .Pq Ar os
782: .Ed
1.77 schwarze 783: .Pp
1.233 schwarze 784: The first three fields identify the
785: .Ar file
786: name,
787: .Ar line
788: number, and
789: .Ar column
790: number of the input file where the message was triggered.
791: The line and column numbers start at 1.
1.106 schwarze 792: Both are omitted for messages referring to an input file as a whole.
1.233 schwarze 793: All
794: .Ar level
795: and
796: .Ar message
797: strings are explained below.
798: The name of the
799: .Ar macro
1.264 schwarze 800: triggering the message and its arguments are omitted where meaningless.
1.202 schwarze 801: The
802: .Ar os
803: operating system specifier is omitted for messages that are relevant
804: for all operating systems.
1.106 schwarze 805: Fatal messages about invalid command line arguments
806: or operating system errors, for example when memory is exhausted,
807: may also omit the
808: .Ar file
1.104 schwarze 809: and
1.106 schwarze 810: .Ar level
811: fields.
1.104 schwarze 812: .Pp
1.77 schwarze 813: Message levels have the following meanings:
814: .Bl -tag -width "warning"
1.240 schwarze 815: .It Cm syserr
816: An operating system error occurred.
817: There isn't necessarily anything wrong with the input files.
818: Output may all the same be missing or incomplete.
819: .It Cm badarg
820: Invalid command line arguments were specified.
821: No input files have been read and no output is produced.
1.133 schwarze 822: .It Cm unsupp
823: An input file uses unsupported low-level
824: .Xr roff 7
825: features.
826: The output may be incomplete and/or misformatted,
827: so using GNU troff instead of
828: .Nm
829: to process the file may be preferable.
1.77 schwarze 830: .It Cm error
1.216 schwarze 831: Indicates a risk of information loss or severe misformatting,
832: in most cases caused by serious syntax errors.
1.77 schwarze 833: .It Cm warning
1.216 schwarze 834: Indicates a risk that the information shown or its formatting
835: may mismatch the author's intent in minor ways.
836: Additionally, syntax errors are classified at least as warnings,
837: even if they do not usually cause misformatting.
1.185 schwarze 838: .It Cm style
839: An input file uses dubious or discouraged style.
840: This is not a complaint about the syntax, and probably neither
841: formatting nor portability are in danger.
842: While great care is taken to avoid false positives on the higher
843: message levels, the
844: .Cm style
845: level tries to reduce the probability that issues go unnoticed,
846: so it may occasionally issue bogus suggestions.
1.254 schwarze 847: Use your judgement to decide whether any particular
1.185 schwarze 848: .Cm style
849: suggestion really justifies a change to the input file.
1.202 schwarze 850: .It Cm base
1.219 schwarze 851: A convention used in the base system of a specific operating system
1.202 schwarze 852: is not adhered to.
853: These are not markup mistakes, and neither the quality of formatting
854: nor portability are in danger.
1.214 schwarze 855: Messages of the
856: .Cm base
857: level are printed with the more intuitive
858: .Cm style
859: .Ar level
860: tag.
1.77 schwarze 861: .El
862: .Pp
863: Messages of the
1.202 schwarze 864: .Cm base ,
1.185 schwarze 865: .Cm style ,
1.133 schwarze 866: .Cm warning ,
867: .Cm error ,
1.77 schwarze 868: and
1.133 schwarze 869: .Cm unsupp
1.240 schwarze 870: levels are hidden unless their level, or a lower level, is requested using a
1.77 schwarze 871: .Fl W
872: option or
1.156 schwarze 873: .Fl T Cm lint
1.77 schwarze 874: output mode.
1.202 schwarze 875: .Pp
876: As indicated below, all
877: .Cm base
878: and some
879: .Cm style
880: checks are only performed if a specific operating system name occurs
881: in the arguments of the
882: .Fl W
883: command line option, of the
1.195 schwarze 884: .Ic \&Os
885: macro, of the
886: .Fl Ios
887: command line option, or, if neither are present, in the return value
888: of the
889: .Xr uname 3
890: function.
1.202 schwarze 891: .Ss Conventions for base system manuals
1.189 schwarze 892: .Bl -ohang
1.200 schwarze 893: .It Sy "Mdocdate found"
894: .Pq mdoc , Nx
895: The
896: .Ic \&Dd
897: macro uses CVS
898: .Ic Mdocdate
899: keyword substitution, which is not supported by the
900: .Nx
901: base system.
902: Consider using the conventional
903: .Dq "Month dd, yyyy"
904: format instead.
905: .It Sy "Mdocdate missing"
906: .Pq mdoc , Ox
907: The
908: .Ic \&Dd
909: macro does not use CVS
910: .Ic Mdocdate
911: keyword substitution, but using it is conventionally expected in the
912: .Ox
913: base system.
1.204 schwarze 914: .It Sy "unknown architecture"
915: .Pq mdoc , Ox , Nx
916: The third argument of the
917: .Ic \&Dt
918: macro does not match any of the architectures this operating system
919: is running on.
1.203 schwarze 920: .It Sy "operating system explicitly specified"
921: .Pq mdoc , Ox , Nx
922: The
923: .Ic \&Os
924: macro has an argument.
925: In the base system, it is conventionally left blank.
1.202 schwarze 926: .It Sy "RCS id missing"
927: .Pq Ox , Nx
928: The manual page lacks the comment line with the RCS identifier
929: generated by CVS
930: .Ic OpenBSD
931: or
932: .Ic NetBSD
933: keyword substitution as conventionally used in these operating systems.
934: .El
935: .Ss Style suggestions
936: .Bl -ohang
1.200 schwarze 937: .It Sy "legacy man(7) date format"
938: .Pq mdoc
939: The
940: .Ic \&Dd
941: macro uses the legacy
942: .Xr man 7
943: date format
1.270 schwarze 944: .Dq yyyy-mm-dd .
1.200 schwarze 945: Consider using the conventional
946: .Xr mdoc 7
947: date format
948: .Dq "Month dd, yyyy"
949: instead.
1.226 schwarze 950: .It Sy "normalizing date format to" : No ...
951: .Pq mdoc , man
952: The
953: .Ic \&Dd
954: or
955: .Ic \&TH
956: macro provides an abbreviated month name or a day number with a
957: leading zero.
958: In the formatted output, the month name is written out in full
959: and the leading zero is omitted.
1.215 schwarze 960: .It Sy "lower case character in document title"
961: .Pq mdoc , man
962: The title is still used as given in the
963: .Ic \&Dt
964: or
965: .Ic \&TH
966: macro.
1.201 schwarze 967: .It Sy "duplicate RCS id"
968: A single manual page contains two copies of the RCS identifier for
969: the same operating system.
970: Consider deleting the later instance and moving the first one up
971: to the top of the page.
1.220 schwarze 972: .It Sy "possible typo in section name"
1.207 schwarze 973: .Pq mdoc
974: Fuzzy string matching revealed that the argument of an
975: .Ic \&Sh
976: macro is similar, but not identical to a standard section name.
1.215 schwarze 977: .It Sy "unterminated quoted argument"
978: .Pq roff
979: Macro arguments can be enclosed in double quote characters
980: such that space characters and macro names contained in the quoted
981: argument need not be escaped.
982: The closing quote of the last argument of a macro can be omitted.
983: However, omitting it is not recommended because it makes the code
984: harder to read.
1.189 schwarze 985: .It Sy "useless macro"
986: .Pq mdoc
987: A
988: .Ic \&Bt ,
989: .Ic \&Tn ,
990: or
1.190 schwarze 991: .Ic \&Ud
1.189 schwarze 992: macro was found.
1.190 schwarze 993: Simply delete it: it serves no useful purpose.
1.191 schwarze 994: .It Sy "consider using OS macro"
995: .Pq mdoc
996: A string was found in plain text or in a
997: .Ic \&Bx
998: macro that could be represented using
999: .Ic \&Ox ,
1000: .Ic \&Nx ,
1001: .Ic \&Fx ,
1002: or
1003: .Ic \&Dx .
1.195 schwarze 1004: .It Sy "errnos out of order"
1005: .Pq mdoc, Nx
1006: The
1007: .Ic \&Er
1008: items in a
1009: .Ic \&Bl
1010: list are not in alphabetical order.
1011: .It Sy "duplicate errno"
1012: .Pq mdoc, Nx
1013: A
1014: .Ic \&Bl
1015: list contains two consecutive
1016: .Ic \&It
1017: entries describing the same
1018: .Ic \&Er
1019: number.
1.249 schwarze 1020: .It Sy "referenced manual not found"
1021: .Pq mdoc
1022: An
1023: .Ic \&Xr
1024: macro references a manual page that was not found.
1025: When running with
1026: .Fl W Cm base ,
1027: the search is restricted to the base system, by default to
1028: .Pa /usr/share/man : Ns Pa /usr/X11R6/man .
1029: This path can be configured at compile time using the
1030: .Dv MANPATH_BASE
1031: preprocessor macro.
1032: When running with
1033: .Fl W Cm style ,
1034: the search is done along the full search path as described in the
1035: .Xr man 1
1036: manual page, respecting the
1037: .Fl m
1038: and
1039: .Fl M
1040: command line options, the
1041: .Ev MANPATH
1042: environment variable, the
1043: .Xr man.conf 5
1044: file and falling back to the default of
1045: .Pa /usr/share/man : Ns Pa /usr/X11R6/man : Ns Pa /usr/local/man ,
1046: also configurable at compile time using the
1047: .Dv MANPATH_DEFAULT
1048: preprocessor macro.
1.213 schwarze 1049: .It Sy "trailing delimiter"
1.192 schwarze 1050: .Pq mdoc
1.213 schwarze 1051: The last argument of an
1052: .Ic \&Ex , \&Fo , \&Nd , \&Nm , \&Os , \&Sh , \&Ss , \&St ,
1053: or
1054: .Ic \&Sx
1055: macro ends with a trailing delimiter.
1056: This is usually bad style and often indicates typos.
1057: Most likely, the delimiter can be removed.
1.197 schwarze 1058: .It Sy "no blank before trailing delimiter"
1.198 schwarze 1059: .Pq mdoc
1.197 schwarze 1060: The last argument of a macro that supports trailing delimiter
1061: arguments is longer than one byte and ends with a trailing delimiter.
1062: Consider inserting a blank such that the delimiter becomes a separate
1063: argument, thus moving it out of the scope of the macro.
1.215 schwarze 1064: .It Sy "fill mode already enabled, skipping"
1065: .Pq man
1066: A
1067: .Ic \&fi
1068: request occurs even though the document is still in fill mode,
1069: or already switched back to fill mode.
1070: It has no effect.
1071: .It Sy "fill mode already disabled, skipping"
1072: .Pq man
1073: An
1074: .Ic \&nf
1075: request occurs even though the document already switched to no-fill mode
1076: and did not switch back to fill mode yet.
1077: It has no effect.
1.250 schwarze 1078: .It Sy "input text line longer than 80 bytes"
1079: Consider breaking the input text line
1080: at one of the blank characters before column 80.
1.222 schwarze 1081: .It Sy "verbatim \(dq--\(dq, maybe consider using \e(em"
1082: .Pq mdoc
1083: Even though the ASCII output device renders an em-dash as
1084: .Qq \-\- ,
1085: that is not a good way to write it in an input file
1086: because it renders poorly on all other output devices.
1.198 schwarze 1087: .It Sy "function name without markup"
1088: .Pq mdoc
1089: A word followed by an empty pair of parentheses occurs on a text line.
1090: Consider using an
1091: .Ic \&Fn
1092: or
1093: .Ic \&Xr
1094: macro.
1.215 schwarze 1095: .It Sy "whitespace at end of input line"
1096: .Pq mdoc , man , roff
1097: Whitespace at the end of input lines is almost never semantically
1098: significant \(em but in the odd case where it might be, it is
1099: extremely confusing when reviewing and maintaining documents.
1100: .It Sy "bad comment style"
1101: .Pq roff
1102: Comment lines start with a dot, a backslash, and a double-quote character.
1103: The
1104: .Nm
1105: utility treats the line as a comment line even without the backslash,
1106: but leaving out the backslash might not be portable.
1.189 schwarze 1107: .El
1.106 schwarze 1108: .Ss Warnings related to the document prologue
1109: .Bl -ohang
1110: .It Sy "missing manual title, using UNTITLED"
1.272 ! schwarze 1111: .Pq mdoc , man
1.106 schwarze 1112: A
1113: .Ic \&Dt
1.272 ! schwarze 1114: or
! 1115: .Ic \&TH
! 1116: macro has no arguments, its first argument is an empty string, or there is no
1.106 schwarze 1117: .Ic \&Dt
1.272 ! schwarze 1118: macro before the first non-prologue
! 1119: .Xr mdoc 7
! 1120: macro.
1.106 schwarze 1121: .It Sy "missing manual title, using \(dq\(dq"
1122: .Pq man
1.272 ! schwarze 1123: An input document does not contain any
1.106 schwarze 1124: .Ic \&TH
1.272 ! schwarze 1125: macro.
1.106 schwarze 1126: .It Sy "missing manual section, using \(dq\(dq"
1127: .Pq mdoc , man
1128: A
1129: .Ic \&Dt
1130: or
1131: .Ic \&TH
1132: macro lacks the mandatory section argument.
1133: .It Sy "unknown manual section"
1134: .Pq mdoc
1135: The section number in a
1136: .Ic \&Dt
1137: line is invalid, but still used.
1.243 schwarze 1138: .It Sy "filename/section mismatch"
1139: .Pq mdoc , man
1140: The name of the input file being processed is known and its file
1141: name extension starts with a non-zero digit, but the
1142: .Ic \&Dt
1143: or
1144: .Ic \&TH
1145: macro contains a
1146: .Ar section
1147: argument that starts with a different non-zero digit.
1148: The
1149: .Ar section
1150: argument is used as provided anyway.
1151: Consider checking whether the file name or the argument need a correction.
1.241 schwarze 1152: .It Sy "missing date, using \(dq\(dq"
1.106 schwarze 1153: .Pq mdoc, man
1154: The document was parsed as
1155: .Xr mdoc 7
1156: and it has no
1157: .Ic \&Dd
1158: macro, or the
1159: .Ic \&Dd
1160: macro has no arguments or only empty arguments;
1161: or the document was parsed as
1162: .Xr man 7
1163: and it has no
1164: .Ic \&TH
1165: macro, or the
1166: .Ic \&TH
1167: macro has less than three arguments or its third argument is empty.
1168: .It Sy "cannot parse date, using it verbatim"
1169: .Pq mdoc , man
1170: The date given in a
1171: .Ic \&Dd
1172: or
1173: .Ic \&TH
1174: macro does not follow the conventional format.
1.212 schwarze 1175: .It Sy "date in the future, using it anyway"
1176: .Pq mdoc , man
1177: The date given in a
1178: .Ic \&Dd
1179: or
1180: .Ic \&TH
1181: macro is more than a day ahead of the current system
1182: .Xr time 3 .
1.106 schwarze 1183: .It Sy "missing Os macro, using \(dq\(dq"
1184: .Pq mdoc
1185: The default or current system is not shown in this case.
1186: .It Sy "late prologue macro"
1187: .Pq mdoc
1188: A
1189: .Ic \&Dd
1190: or
1191: .Ic \&Os
1192: macro occurs after some non-prologue macro, but still takes effect.
1193: .It Sy "prologue macros out of order"
1194: .Pq mdoc
1195: The prologue macros are not given in the conventional order
1196: .Ic \&Dd ,
1197: .Ic \&Dt ,
1198: .Ic \&Os .
1199: All three macros are used even when given in another order.
1200: .El
1201: .Ss Warnings regarding document structure
1202: .Bl -ohang
1203: .It Sy ".so is fragile, better use ln(1)"
1204: .Pq roff
1205: Including files only works when the parser program runs with the correct
1206: current working directory.
1207: .It Sy "no document body"
1208: .Pq mdoc , man
1209: The document body contains neither text nor macros.
1210: An empty document is shown, consisting only of a header and a footer line.
1211: .It Sy "content before first section header"
1212: .Pq mdoc , man
1213: Some macros or text precede the first
1214: .Ic \&Sh
1215: or
1216: .Ic \&SH
1217: section header.
1218: The offending macros and text are parsed and added to the top level
1219: of the syntax tree, outside any section block.
1220: .It Sy "first section is not NAME"
1221: .Pq mdoc
1222: The argument of the first
1223: .Ic \&Sh
1224: macro is not
1225: .Sq NAME .
1226: This may confuse
1227: .Xr makewhatis 8
1228: and
1229: .Xr apropos 1 .
1.168 schwarze 1230: .It Sy "NAME section without Nm before Nd"
1.106 schwarze 1231: .Pq mdoc
1.155 schwarze 1232: The NAME section does not contain any
1233: .Ic \&Nm
1.168 schwarze 1234: child macro before the first
1235: .Ic \&Nd
1236: macro.
1.155 schwarze 1237: .It Sy "NAME section without description"
1238: .Pq mdoc
1239: The NAME section lacks the mandatory
1240: .Ic \&Nd
1241: child macro.
1242: .It Sy "description not at the end of NAME"
1243: .Pq mdoc
1244: The NAME section does contain an
1.106 schwarze 1245: .Ic \&Nd
1.155 schwarze 1246: child macro, but other content follows it.
1247: .It Sy "bad NAME section content"
1248: .Pq mdoc
1249: The NAME section contains plain text or macros other than
1250: .Ic \&Nm
1.106 schwarze 1251: and
1.155 schwarze 1252: .Ic \&Nd .
1.168 schwarze 1253: .It Sy "missing comma before name"
1254: .Pq mdoc
1255: The NAME section contains an
1256: .Ic \&Nm
1257: macro that is neither the first one nor preceded by a comma.
1.142 schwarze 1258: .It Sy "missing description line, using \(dq\(dq"
1259: .Pq mdoc
1260: The
1261: .Ic \&Nd
1262: macro lacks the required argument.
1263: The title line of the manual will end after the dash.
1.177 schwarze 1264: .It Sy "description line outside NAME section"
1265: .Pq mdoc
1266: An
1267: .Ic \&Nd
1268: macro appears outside the NAME section.
1269: The arguments are printed anyway and the following text is used for
1270: .Xr apropos 1 ,
1271: but none of that behaviour is portable.
1.106 schwarze 1272: .It Sy "sections out of conventional order"
1273: .Pq mdoc
1274: A standard section occurs after another section it usually precedes.
1275: All section titles are used as given,
1276: and the order of sections is not changed.
1277: .It Sy "duplicate section title"
1278: .Pq mdoc
1279: The same standard section title occurs more than once.
1280: .It Sy "unexpected section"
1281: .Pq mdoc
1282: A standard section header occurs in a section of the manual
1283: where it normally isn't useful.
1.211 schwarze 1284: .It Sy "cross reference to self"
1.266 schwarze 1285: .Pq mdoc , man
1.211 schwarze 1286: An
1287: .Ic \&Xr
1.266 schwarze 1288: or
1289: .Ic \&MR
1.211 schwarze 1290: macro refers to a name and section matching the section of the present
1291: manual page and a name mentioned in an
1292: .Ic \&Nm
1293: macro in the NAME or SYNOPSIS section, or in an
1294: .Ic \&Fn
1295: or
1296: .Ic \&Fo
1297: macro in the SYNOPSIS.
1298: Consider using
1299: .Ic \&Nm
1300: or
1301: .Ic \&Fn
1302: instead of
1303: .Ic \&Xr .
1.112 schwarze 1304: .It Sy "unusual Xr order"
1305: .Pq mdoc
1306: In the SEE ALSO section, an
1307: .Ic \&Xr
1308: macro with a lower section number follows one with a higher number,
1309: or two
1310: .Ic \&Xr
1.157 schwarze 1311: macros referring to the same section are out of alphabetical order.
1.112 schwarze 1312: .It Sy "unusual Xr punctuation"
1313: .Pq mdoc
1314: In the SEE ALSO section, punctuation between two
1315: .Ic \&Xr
1316: macros differs from a single comma, or there is trailing punctuation
1317: after the last
1318: .Ic \&Xr
1319: macro.
1.111 schwarze 1320: .It Sy "AUTHORS section without An macro"
1321: .Pq mdoc
1322: An AUTHORS sections contains no
1323: .Ic \&An
1324: macros, or only empty ones.
1325: Probably, there are author names lacking markup.
1.106 schwarze 1326: .El
1327: .Ss "Warnings related to macros and nesting"
1328: .Bl -ohang
1329: .It Sy "obsolete macro"
1330: .Pq mdoc
1331: See the
1332: .Xr mdoc 7
1333: manual for replacements.
1.126 schwarze 1334: .It Sy "macro neither callable nor escaped"
1335: .Pq mdoc
1336: The name of a macro that is not callable appears on a macro line.
1337: It is printed verbatim.
1.152 schwarze 1338: If the intention is to call it, move it to its own input line;
1.126 schwarze 1339: otherwise, escape it by prepending
1340: .Sq \e& .
1.106 schwarze 1341: .It Sy "skipping paragraph macro"
1342: In
1343: .Xr mdoc 7
1344: documents, this happens
1345: .Bl -dash -compact
1346: .It
1347: at the beginning and end of sections and subsections
1348: .It
1349: right before non-compact lists and displays
1350: .It
1351: at the end of items in non-column, non-compact lists
1352: .It
1353: and for multiple consecutive paragraph macros.
1354: .El
1355: In
1356: .Xr man 7
1357: documents, it happens
1358: .Bl -dash -compact
1359: .It
1360: for empty
1361: .Ic \&P ,
1362: .Ic \&PP ,
1363: and
1364: .Ic \&LP
1365: macros
1366: .It
1367: for
1368: .Ic \&IP
1369: macros having neither head nor body arguments
1370: .It
1371: for
1372: .Ic \&br
1373: or
1374: .Ic \&sp
1375: right after
1376: .Ic \&SH
1377: or
1378: .Ic \&SS
1379: .El
1380: .It Sy "moving paragraph macro out of list"
1381: .Pq mdoc
1382: A list item in a
1383: .Ic \&Bl
1384: list contains a trailing paragraph macro.
1385: The paragraph macro is moved after the end of the list.
1386: .It Sy "skipping no-space macro"
1387: .Pq mdoc
1388: An input line begins with an
1389: .Ic \&Ns
1.208 schwarze 1390: macro, or the next argument after an
1391: .Ic \&Ns
1392: macro is an isolated closing delimiter.
1.106 schwarze 1393: The macro is ignored.
1394: .It Sy "blocks badly nested"
1395: .Pq mdoc
1396: If two blocks intersect, one should completely contain the other.
1397: Otherwise, rendered output is likely to look strange in any output
1398: format, and rendering in SGML-based output formats is likely to be
1399: outright wrong because such languages do not support badly nested
1400: blocks at all.
1401: Typical examples of badly nested blocks are
1402: .Qq Ic \&Ao \&Bo \&Ac \&Bc
1403: and
1404: .Qq Ic \&Ao \&Bq \&Ac .
1405: In these examples,
1406: .Ic \&Ac
1407: breaks
1408: .Ic \&Bo
1409: and
1410: .Ic \&Bq ,
1411: respectively.
1412: .It Sy "nested displays are not portable"
1413: .Pq mdoc
1414: A
1415: .Ic \&Bd ,
1416: .Ic \&D1 ,
1417: or
1418: .Ic \&Dl
1419: display occurs nested inside another
1420: .Ic \&Bd
1421: display.
1422: This works with
1423: .Nm ,
1424: but fails with most other implementations.
1425: .It Sy "moving content out of list"
1426: .Pq mdoc
1427: A
1428: .Ic \&Bl
1429: list block contains text or macros before the first
1430: .Ic \&It
1431: macro.
1432: The offending children are moved before the beginning of the list.
1.209 schwarze 1433: .It Sy "first macro on line"
1434: Inside a
1435: .Ic \&Bl Fl column
1436: list, a
1437: .Ic \&Ta
1438: macro occurs as the first macro on a line, which is not portable.
1.106 schwarze 1439: .It Sy "line scope broken"
1440: .Pq man
1441: While parsing the next-line scope of the previous macro,
1442: another macro is found that prematurely terminates the previous one.
1443: The previous, interrupted macro is deleted from the parse tree.
1444: .El
1445: .Ss "Warnings related to missing arguments"
1446: .Bl -ohang
1447: .It Sy "skipping empty request"
1.118 schwarze 1448: .Pq roff , eqn
1449: The macro name is missing from a macro definition request,
1450: or an
1451: .Xr eqn 7
1452: control statement or operation keyword lacks its required argument.
1.106 schwarze 1453: .It Sy "conditional request controls empty scope"
1454: .Pq roff
1455: A conditional request is only useful if any of the following
1456: follows it on the same logical input line:
1457: .Bl -dash -compact
1458: .It
1459: The
1460: .Sq \e{
1461: keyword to open a multi-line scope.
1462: .It
1463: A request or macro or some text, resulting in a single-line scope.
1464: .It
1465: The immediate end of the logical line without any intervening whitespace,
1466: resulting in next-line scope.
1467: .El
1468: Here, a conditional request is followed by trailing whitespace only,
1469: and there is no other content on its logical input line.
1470: Note that it doesn't matter whether the logical input line is split
1471: across multiple physical input lines using
1472: .Sq \e
1473: line continuation characters.
1474: This is one of the rare cases
1475: where trailing whitespace is syntactically significant.
1476: The conditional request controls a scope containing whitespace only,
1477: so it is unlikely to have a significant effect,
1478: except that it may control a following
1479: .Ic \&el
1480: clause.
1481: .It Sy "skipping empty macro"
1482: .Pq mdoc
1.147 schwarze 1483: The indicated macro has no arguments and hence no effect.
1484: .It Sy "empty block"
1485: .Pq mdoc , man
1486: A
1487: .Ic \&Bd ,
1488: .Ic \&Bk ,
1489: .Ic \&Bl ,
1490: .Ic \&D1 ,
1491: .Ic \&Dl ,
1492: or
1.263 schwarze 1493: .Ic \&RS
1.147 schwarze 1494: block contains nothing in its body and will produce no output.
1.106 schwarze 1495: .It Sy "empty argument, using 0n"
1496: .Pq mdoc
1497: The required width is missing after
1498: .Ic \&Bd
1499: or
1500: .Ic \&Bl
1501: .Fl offset
1502: or
1.186 schwarze 1503: .Fl width .
1.106 schwarze 1504: .It Sy "missing display type, using -ragged"
1505: .Pq mdoc
1506: The
1507: .Ic \&Bd
1508: macro is invoked without the required display type.
1509: .It Sy "list type is not the first argument"
1510: .Pq mdoc
1511: In a
1512: .Ic \&Bl
1513: macro, at least one other argument precedes the type argument.
1514: The
1515: .Nm
1516: utility copes with any argument order, but some other
1517: .Xr mdoc 7
1518: implementations do not.
1519: .It Sy "missing -width in -tag list, using 8n"
1520: .Pq mdoc
1521: Every
1522: .Ic \&Bl
1523: macro having the
1524: .Fl tag
1525: argument requires
1526: .Fl width ,
1527: too.
1528: .It Sy "missing utility name, using \(dq\(dq"
1529: .Pq mdoc
1530: The
1531: .Ic \&Ex Fl std
1532: macro is called without an argument before
1533: .Ic \&Nm
1534: has first been called with an argument.
1.146 schwarze 1535: .It Sy "missing function name, using \(dq\(dq"
1536: .Pq mdoc
1537: The
1538: .Ic \&Fo
1539: macro is called without an argument.
1540: No function name is printed.
1.106 schwarze 1541: .It Sy "empty head in list item"
1542: .Pq mdoc
1543: In a
1544: .Ic \&Bl
1545: .Fl diag ,
1546: .Fl hang ,
1547: .Fl inset ,
1548: .Fl ohang ,
1549: or
1550: .Fl tag
1551: list, an
1552: .Ic \&It
1553: macro lacks the required argument.
1554: The item head is left empty.
1555: .It Sy "empty list item"
1556: .Pq mdoc
1557: In a
1558: .Ic \&Bl
1559: .Fl bullet ,
1560: .Fl dash ,
1561: .Fl enum ,
1562: or
1563: .Fl hyphen
1564: list, an
1565: .Ic \&It
1566: block is empty.
1567: An empty list item is shown.
1.209 schwarze 1568: .It Sy "missing argument, using next line"
1569: .Pq mdoc
1570: An
1571: .Ic \&It
1572: macro in a
1573: .Ic \&Bd Fl column
1574: list has no arguments.
1575: While
1576: .Nm
1577: uses the text or macros of the following line, if any, for the cell,
1578: other formatters may misformat the list.
1.152 schwarze 1579: .It Sy "missing font type, using \efR"
1.106 schwarze 1580: .Pq mdoc
1581: A
1582: .Ic \&Bf
1583: macro has no argument.
1.152 schwarze 1584: It switches to the default font.
1585: .It Sy "unknown font type, using \efR"
1.106 schwarze 1586: .Pq mdoc
1587: The
1588: .Ic \&Bf
1589: argument is invalid.
1.152 schwarze 1590: The default font is used instead.
1.127 schwarze 1591: .It Sy "nothing follows prefix"
1592: .Pq mdoc
1593: A
1594: .Ic \&Pf
1595: macro has no argument, or only one argument and no macro follows
1596: on the same input line.
1597: This defeats its purpose; in particular, spacing is not suppressed
1598: before the text or macros following on the next input line.
1.143 schwarze 1599: .It Sy "empty reference block"
1600: .Pq mdoc
1601: An
1602: .Ic \&Rs
1603: macro is immediately followed by an
1604: .Ic \&Re
1605: macro on the next input line.
1606: Such an empty block does not produce any output.
1.165 schwarze 1607: .It Sy "missing section argument"
1.266 schwarze 1608: .Pq mdoc , man
1.165 schwarze 1609: An
1610: .Ic \&Xr
1.266 schwarze 1611: or
1612: .Ic \&MR
1.165 schwarze 1613: macro lacks its second, section number argument.
1.266 schwarze 1614: The first argument, i.e. the name, is printed, but without a section number.
1615: In the case of
1616: .Ic \&Xr ,
1617: the parentheses are also omitted.
1.106 schwarze 1618: .It Sy "missing -std argument, adding it"
1619: .Pq mdoc
1620: An
1621: .Ic \&Ex
1622: or
1623: .Ic \&Rv
1624: macro lacks the required
1625: .Fl std
1626: argument.
1627: The
1628: .Nm
1629: utility assumes
1630: .Fl std
1631: even when it is not specified, but other implementations may not.
1.150 schwarze 1632: .It Sy "missing option string, using \(dq\(dq"
1633: .Pq man
1634: The
1635: .Ic \&OP
1636: macro is invoked without any argument.
1637: An empty pair of square brackets is shown.
1638: .It Sy "missing resource identifier, using \(dq\(dq"
1639: .Pq man
1640: The
1.206 schwarze 1641: .Ic \&MT
1642: or
1.150 schwarze 1643: .Ic \&UR
1644: macro is invoked without any argument.
1645: An empty pair of angle brackets is shown.
1.118 schwarze 1646: .It Sy "missing eqn box, using \(dq\(dq"
1647: .Pq eqn
1648: A diacritic mark or a binary operator is found,
1649: but there is nothing to the left of it.
1650: An empty box is inserted.
1.106 schwarze 1651: .El
1652: .Ss "Warnings related to bad macro arguments"
1653: .Bl -ohang
1654: .It Sy "duplicate argument"
1655: .Pq mdoc
1656: A
1657: .Ic \&Bd
1658: or
1659: .Ic \&Bl
1660: macro has more than one
1661: .Fl compact ,
1662: more than one
1663: .Fl offset ,
1664: or more than one
1665: .Fl width
1666: argument.
1667: All but the last instances of these arguments are ignored.
1668: .It Sy "skipping duplicate argument"
1669: .Pq mdoc
1670: An
1671: .Ic \&An
1672: macro has more than one
1673: .Fl split
1674: or
1675: .Fl nosplit
1676: argument.
1677: All but the first of these arguments are ignored.
1678: .It Sy "skipping duplicate display type"
1679: .Pq mdoc
1680: A
1681: .Ic \&Bd
1682: macro has more than one type argument; the first one is used.
1683: .It Sy "skipping duplicate list type"
1684: .Pq mdoc
1685: A
1686: .Ic \&Bl
1687: macro has more than one type argument; the first one is used.
1688: .It Sy "skipping -width argument"
1689: .Pq mdoc
1690: A
1691: .Ic \&Bl
1692: .Fl column ,
1693: .Fl diag ,
1694: .Fl ohang ,
1695: .Fl inset ,
1696: or
1697: .Fl item
1698: list has a
1699: .Fl width
1700: argument.
1701: That has no effect.
1.151 schwarze 1702: .It Sy "wrong number of cells"
1703: In a line of a
1704: .Ic \&Bl Fl column
1705: list, the number of tabs or
1706: .Ic \&Ta
1707: macros is less than the number expected from the list header line
1708: or exceeds the expected number by more than one.
1709: Missing cells remain empty, and all cells exceeding the number of
1710: columns are joined into one single cell.
1.106 schwarze 1711: .It Sy "unknown AT&T UNIX version"
1712: .Pq mdoc
1713: An
1714: .Ic \&At
1715: macro has an invalid argument.
1716: It is used verbatim, with
1717: .Qq "AT&T UNIX "
1718: prefixed to it.
1.113 schwarze 1719: .It Sy "comma in function argument"
1720: .Pq mdoc
1721: An argument of an
1722: .Ic \&Fa
1723: or
1724: .Ic \&Fn
1725: macro contains a comma; it should probably be split into two arguments.
1.117 schwarze 1726: .It Sy "parenthesis in function name"
1727: .Pq mdoc
1728: The first argument of an
1729: .Ic \&Fc
1730: or
1731: .Ic \&Fn
1732: macro contains an opening or closing parenthesis; that's probably wrong,
1733: parentheses are added automatically.
1.196 schwarze 1734: .It Sy "unknown library name"
1735: .Pq mdoc, not on Ox
1736: An
1737: .Ic \&Lb
1738: macro has an unknown name argument and will be rendered as
1739: .Qq library Dq Ar name .
1.106 schwarze 1740: .It Sy "invalid content in Rs block"
1741: .Pq mdoc
1742: An
1743: .Ic \&Rs
1744: block contains plain text or non-% macros.
1745: The bogus content is left in the syntax tree.
1746: Formatting may be poor.
1747: .It Sy "invalid Boolean argument"
1748: .Pq mdoc
1749: An
1750: .Ic \&Sm
1751: macro has an argument other than
1752: .Cm on
1753: or
1754: .Cm off .
1755: The invalid argument is moved out of the macro, which leaves the macro
1756: empty, causing it to toggle the spacing mode.
1.228 schwarze 1757: .It Sy "argument contains two font escapes"
1758: .Pq roff
1759: The second argument of a
1760: .Ic char
1761: request contains more than one font escape sequence.
1762: A wrong font may remain active after using the character.
1.106 schwarze 1763: .It Sy "unknown font, skipping request"
1.115 schwarze 1764: .Pq man , tbl
1.106 schwarze 1765: A
1766: .Xr roff 7
1767: .Ic \&ft
1.115 schwarze 1768: request or a
1769: .Xr tbl 7
1770: .Ic \&f
1771: layout modifier has an unknown
1772: .Ar font
1773: argument.
1.258 schwarze 1774: .It Sy "ignoring distance argument"
1775: .Pq roff
1776: In addition to the margin character, an
1777: .Ic \&mc
1778: request has a second argument supposed to represent a distance, but the
1779: .Nm
1780: implementation of
1781: .Ic \&mc
1782: always ignores the second argument.
1.151 schwarze 1783: .It Sy "odd number of characters in request"
1784: .Pq roff
1785: A
1786: .Ic \&tr
1787: request contains an odd number of characters.
1788: The last character is mapped to the blank character.
1.106 schwarze 1789: .El
1790: .Ss "Warnings related to plain text"
1791: .Bl -ohang
1792: .It Sy "blank line in fill mode, using .sp"
1793: .Pq mdoc
1794: The meaning of blank input lines is only well-defined in non-fill mode:
1795: In fill mode, line breaks of text input lines are not supposed to be
1796: significant.
1797: However, for compatibility with groff, blank lines in fill mode
1.238 schwarze 1798: are formatted like
1.106 schwarze 1799: .Ic \&sp
1800: requests.
1.238 schwarze 1801: To request a paragraph break, use
1802: .Ic \&Pp
1803: instead of a blank line.
1.106 schwarze 1804: .It Sy "tab in filled text"
1805: .Pq mdoc , man
1806: The meaning of tab characters is only well-defined in non-fill mode:
1807: In fill mode, whitespace is not supposed to be significant
1808: on text input lines.
1809: As an implementation dependent choice, tab characters on text lines
1810: are passed through to the formatters in any case.
1811: Given that the text before the tab character will be filled,
1812: it is hard to predict which tab stop position the tab will advance to.
1.172 schwarze 1813: .It Sy "new sentence, new line"
1814: .Pq mdoc
1815: A new sentence starts in the middle of a text line.
1816: Start it on a new input line to help formatters produce correct spacing.
1.260 schwarze 1817: .It Sy "invalid escape sequence argument"
1.106 schwarze 1818: .Pq roff
1.260 schwarze 1819: The argument of an escape sequence is of an invalid form.
1.259 schwarze 1820: Invalid escape sequences are ignored.
1.232 schwarze 1821: .It Sy "undefined escape, printing literally"
1822: .Pq roff
1823: In an escape sequence, the first character
1824: right after the leading backslash is invalid.
1825: That character is printed literally,
1826: which is equivalent to ignoring the backslash.
1.106 schwarze 1827: .It Sy "undefined string, using \(dq\(dq"
1828: .Pq roff
1829: If a string is used without being defined before,
1830: its value is implicitly set to the empty string.
1831: However, defining strings explicitly before use
1832: keeps the code more readable.
1833: .El
1.138 schwarze 1834: .Ss "Warnings related to tables"
1835: .Bl -ohang
1836: .It Sy "tbl line starts with span"
1837: .Pq tbl
1838: The first cell in a table layout line is a horizontal span
1839: .Pq Sq Cm s .
1840: Data provided for this cell is ignored, and nothing is printed in the cell.
1841: .It Sy "tbl column starts with span"
1842: .Pq tbl
1843: The first line of a table layout specification
1844: requests a vertical span
1845: .Pq Sq Cm ^ .
1846: Data provided for this cell is ignored, and nothing is printed in the cell.
1847: .It Sy "skipping vertical bar in tbl layout"
1848: .Pq tbl
1849: A table layout specification contains more than two consecutive vertical bars.
1850: A double bar is printed, all additional bars are discarded.
1.106 schwarze 1851: .El
1852: .Ss "Errors related to tables"
1.136 schwarze 1853: .Bl -ohang
1854: .It Sy "non-alphabetic character in tbl options"
1855: .Pq tbl
1856: The table options line contains a character other than a letter,
1857: blank, or comma where the beginning of an option name is expected.
1858: The character is ignored.
1859: .It Sy "skipping unknown tbl option"
1860: .Pq tbl
1861: The table options line contains a string of letters that does not
1862: match any known option name.
1863: The word is ignored.
1864: .It Sy "missing tbl option argument"
1865: .Pq tbl
1866: A table option that requires an argument is not followed by an
1867: opening parenthesis, or the opening parenthesis is immediately
1868: followed by a closing parenthesis.
1869: The option is ignored.
1870: .It Sy "wrong tbl option argument size"
1871: .Pq tbl
1872: A table option argument contains an invalid number of characters.
1873: Both the option and the argument are ignored.
1.138 schwarze 1874: .It Sy "empty tbl layout"
1875: .Pq tbl
1876: A table layout specification is completely empty,
1877: specifying zero lines and zero columns.
1878: As a fallback, a single left-justified column is used.
1879: .It Sy "invalid character in tbl layout"
1880: .Pq tbl
1881: A table layout specification contains a character that can neither
1882: be interpreted as a layout key character nor as a layout modifier,
1883: or a modifier precedes the first key.
1884: The invalid character is discarded.
1885: .It Sy "unmatched parenthesis in tbl layout"
1886: .Pq tbl
1887: A table layout specification contains an opening parenthesis,
1888: but no matching closing parenthesis.
1889: The rest of the input line, starting from the parenthesis, has no effect.
1.268 schwarze 1890: .It Sy "ignoring invalid column width in tbl layout"
1891: .Pq tbl
1892: A column width specifier in a table layout is empty, zero, or not a valid
1893: numerical expression.
1894: The width specifier is ignored and the column is made wide enough
1.269 schwarze 1895: to accommodate all its data cells.
1.248 schwarze 1896: .It Sy "ignoring excessive spacing in tbl layout"
1897: .Pq tbl
1898: A spacing modifier in a table layout is unreasonably large.
1899: The default spacing of 3n is used instead.
1.139 schwarze 1900: .It Sy "tbl without any data cells"
1901: .Pq tbl
1902: A table does not contain any data cells.
1903: It will probably produce no output.
1904: .It Sy "ignoring data in spanned tbl cell"
1905: .Pq tbl
1906: A table cell is marked as a horizontal span
1907: .Pq Sq Cm s
1908: or vertical span
1909: .Pq Sq Cm ^
1910: in the table layout, but it contains data.
1911: The data is ignored.
1912: .It Sy "ignoring extra tbl data cells"
1913: .Pq tbl
1914: A data line contains more cells than the corresponding layout line.
1915: The data in the extra cells is ignored.
1916: .It Sy "data block open at end of tbl"
1917: .Pq tbl
1918: A data block is opened with
1919: .Cm T{ ,
1920: but never closed with a matching
1921: .Cm T} .
1922: The remaining data lines of the table are all put into one cell,
1923: and any remaining cells stay empty.
1.106 schwarze 1924: .El
1925: .Ss "Errors related to roff, mdoc, and man code"
1926: .Bl -ohang
1.215 schwarze 1927: .It Sy "duplicate prologue macro"
1928: .Pq mdoc
1929: One of the prologue macros occurs more than once.
1930: The last instance overrides all previous ones.
1931: .It Sy "skipping late title macro"
1932: .Pq mdoc
1933: The
1934: .Ic \&Dt
1935: macro appears after the first non-prologue macro.
1936: Traditional formatters cannot handle this because
1937: they write the page header before parsing the document body.
1938: Even though this technical restriction does not apply to
1939: .Nm ,
1940: traditional semantics is preserved.
1941: The late macro is discarded including its arguments.
1.106 schwarze 1942: .It Sy "input stack limit exceeded, infinite loop?"
1943: .Pq roff
1944: Explicit recursion limits are implemented for the following features,
1945: in order to prevent infinite loops:
1946: .Bl -dash -compact
1947: .It
1948: expansion of nested escape sequences
1949: including expansion of strings and number registers,
1950: .It
1951: expansion of nested user-defined macros,
1952: .It
1953: and
1954: .Ic \&so
1955: file inclusion.
1956: .El
1957: When a limit is hit, the output is incorrect, typically losing
1958: some content, but the parser can continue.
1959: .It Sy "skipping bad character"
1960: .Pq mdoc , man , roff
1961: The input file contains a byte that is not a printable
1962: .Xr ascii 7
1963: character.
1964: The message mentions the character number.
1965: The offending byte is replaced with a question mark
1966: .Pq Sq \&? .
1967: Consider editing the input file to replace the byte with an ASCII
1968: transliteration of the intended character.
1969: .It Sy "skipping unknown macro"
1970: .Pq mdoc , man , roff
1971: The first identifier on a request or macro line is neither recognized as a
1972: .Xr roff 7
1973: request, nor as a user-defined macro, nor, respectively, as an
1974: .Xr mdoc 7
1975: or
1976: .Xr man 7
1977: macro.
1978: It may be mistyped or unsupported.
1979: The request or macro is discarded including its arguments.
1.227 schwarze 1980: .It Sy "skipping request outside macro"
1981: .Pq roff
1982: A
1983: .Ic shift
1984: or
1985: .Ic return
1986: request occurs outside any macro definition and has no effect.
1.133 schwarze 1987: .It Sy "skipping insecure request"
1988: .Pq roff
1989: An input file attempted to run a shell command
1990: or to read or write an external file.
1991: Such attempts are denied for security reasons.
1.106 schwarze 1992: .It Sy "skipping item outside list"
1.118 schwarze 1993: .Pq mdoc , eqn
1.106 schwarze 1994: An
1995: .Ic \&It
1996: macro occurs outside any
1997: .Ic \&Bl
1.118 schwarze 1998: list, or an
1999: .Xr eqn 7
2000: .Ic above
2001: delimiter occurs outside any pile.
1.106 schwarze 2002: It is discarded including its arguments.
2003: .It Sy "skipping column outside column list"
2004: .Pq mdoc
2005: A
2006: .Ic \&Ta
2007: macro occurs outside any
2008: .Ic \&Bl Fl column
2009: block.
2010: It is discarded including its arguments.
2011: .It Sy "skipping end of block that is not open"
2012: .Pq mdoc , man , eqn , tbl , roff
2013: Various syntax elements can only be used to explicitly close blocks
2014: that have previously been opened.
2015: An
2016: .Xr mdoc 7
2017: block closing macro, a
2018: .Xr man 7
1.206 schwarze 2019: .Ic \&ME , \&RE
1.106 schwarze 2020: or
2021: .Ic \&UE
1.118 schwarze 2022: macro, an
2023: .Xr eqn 7
2024: right delimiter or closing brace, or the end of an equation, table, or
1.106 schwarze 2025: .Xr roff 7
2026: conditional request is encountered but no matching block is open.
2027: The offending request or macro is discarded.
1.135 schwarze 2028: .It Sy "fewer RS blocks open, skipping"
2029: .Pq man
2030: The
2031: .Ic \&RE
2032: macro is invoked with an argument, but less than the specified number of
2033: .Ic \&RS
2034: blocks is open.
2035: The
2036: .Ic \&RE
2037: macro is discarded.
1.106 schwarze 2038: .It Sy "inserting missing end of block"
2039: .Pq mdoc , tbl
2040: Various
2041: .Xr mdoc 7
2042: macros as well as tables require explicit closing by dedicated macros.
2043: A block that doesn't support bad nesting
2044: ends before all of its children are properly closed.
2045: The open child nodes are closed implicitly.
1.152 schwarze 2046: .It Sy "appending missing end of block"
1.106 schwarze 2047: .Pq mdoc , man , eqn , tbl , roff
2048: At the end of the document, an explicit
2049: .Xr mdoc 7
2050: block, a
2051: .Xr man 7
2052: next-line scope or
1.206 schwarze 2053: .Ic \&MT , \&RS
1.106 schwarze 2054: or
2055: .Ic \&UR
2056: block, an equation, table, or
2057: .Xr roff 7
2058: conditional or ignore block is still open.
2059: The open block is closed implicitly.
2060: .It Sy "escaped character not allowed in a name"
2061: .Pq roff
2062: Macro, string and register identifiers consist of printable,
2063: non-whitespace ASCII characters.
2064: Escape sequences and characters and strings expressed in terms of them
2065: cannot form part of a name.
2066: The first argument of an
2067: .Ic \&am ,
2068: .Ic \&as ,
2069: .Ic \&de ,
2070: .Ic \&ds ,
2071: .Ic \&nr ,
2072: or
2073: .Ic \&rr
2074: request, or any argument of an
2075: .Ic \&rm
2076: request, or the name of a request or user defined macro being called,
2077: is terminated by an escape sequence.
2078: In the cases of
2079: .Ic \&as ,
2080: .Ic \&ds ,
2081: and
2082: .Ic \&nr ,
2083: the request has no effect at all.
2084: In the cases of
2085: .Ic \&am ,
2086: .Ic \&de ,
2087: .Ic \&rr ,
2088: and
2089: .Ic \&rm ,
2090: what was parsed up to this point is used as the arguments to the request,
2091: and the rest of the input line is discarded including the escape sequence.
2092: When parsing for a request or a user-defined macro name to be called,
2093: only the escape sequence is discarded.
2094: The characters preceding it are used as the request or macro name,
2095: the characters following it are used as the arguments to the request or macro.
1.227 schwarze 2096: .It Sy "using macro argument outside macro"
2097: .Pq roff
2098: The escape sequence \e$ occurs outside any macro definition
2099: and expands to the empty string.
2100: .It Sy "argument number is not numeric"
2101: .Pq roff
2102: The argument of the escape sequence \e$ is not a digit;
2103: the escape sequence expands to the empty string.
1.257 schwarze 2104: .It Sy "negative argument, using 0"
2105: .Pq roff
2106: A
2107: .Ic \&shift
2108: request has a negative argument
2109: or an argument that is negative due to integer overflow.
2110: Macro argument numbering remains unchanged.
1.124 schwarze 2111: .It Sy "NOT IMPLEMENTED: Bd -file"
2112: .Pq mdoc
2113: For security reasons, the
2114: .Ic \&Bd
2115: macro does not support the
2116: .Fl file
2117: argument.
2118: By requesting the inclusion of a sensitive file, a malicious document
2119: might otherwise trick a privileged user into inadvertently displaying
2120: the file on the screen, revealing the file content to bystanders.
2121: The argument is ignored including the file name following it.
1.163 schwarze 2122: .It Sy "skipping display without arguments"
2123: .Pq mdoc
2124: A
2125: .Ic \&Bd
2126: block macro does not have any arguments.
2127: The block is discarded, and the block content is displayed in
2128: whatever mode was active before the block.
1.106 schwarze 2129: .It Sy "missing list type, using -item"
2130: .Pq mdoc
2131: A
2132: .Ic \&Bl
2133: macro fails to specify the list type.
1.194 schwarze 2134: .It Sy "argument is not numeric, using 1"
2135: .Pq roff
2136: The argument of a
2137: .Ic \&ce
2138: request is not a number.
1.228 schwarze 2139: .It Sy "argument is not a character"
2140: .Pq roff
2141: The first argument of a
2142: .Ic char
2143: request is neither a single ASCII character
2144: nor a single character escape sequence.
2145: The request is ignored including all its arguments.
1.258 schwarze 2146: .It Sy "skipping unusable escape sequence"
2147: .Pq roff
2148: The first argument of an
2149: .Ic mc
2150: request is neither a single ASCII character
2151: nor a single character escape sequence.
2152: All arguments are ignored and printing of a margin character is disabled.
1.106 schwarze 2153: .It Sy "missing manual name, using \(dq\(dq"
1.266 schwarze 2154: .Pq mdoc , man
1.106 schwarze 2155: The first call to
1.168 schwarze 2156: .Ic \&Nm ,
1.266 schwarze 2157: or any call in the NAME section, lacks the required argument, or
2158: .Ic \&MR
2159: is called without any argument.
1.106 schwarze 2160: .It Sy "uname(3) system call failed, using UNKNOWN"
2161: .Pq mdoc
2162: The
2163: .Ic \&Os
2164: macro is called without arguments, and the
2165: .Xr uname 3
2166: system call failed.
2167: As a workaround,
2168: .Nm
2169: can be compiled with
2170: .Sm off
2171: .Fl D Cm OSNAME=\(dq\e\(dq Ar string Cm \e\(dq\(dq .
2172: .Sm on
2173: .It Sy "unknown standard specifier"
2174: .Pq mdoc
2175: An
2176: .Ic \&St
2177: macro has an unknown argument and is discarded.
2178: .It Sy "skipping request without numeric argument"
1.118 schwarze 2179: .Pq roff , eqn
1.106 schwarze 2180: An
2181: .Ic \&it
1.118 schwarze 2182: request or an
2183: .Xr eqn 7
2184: .Ic \&size
2185: or
2186: .Ic \&gsize
2187: statement has a non-numeric or negative argument or no argument at all.
2188: The invalid request or statement is ignored.
1.227 schwarze 2189: .It Sy "excessive shift"
2190: .Pq roff
2191: The argument of a
2192: .Ic shift
2193: request is larger than the number of arguments of the macro that is
2194: currently being executed.
2195: All macro arguments are deleted and \en(.$ is set to zero.
1.132 schwarze 2196: .It Sy "NOT IMPLEMENTED: .so with absolute path or \(dq..\(dq"
2197: .Pq roff
2198: For security reasons,
2199: .Nm
2200: allows
2201: .Ic \&so
2202: file inclusion requests only with relative paths
2203: and only without ascending to any parent directory.
2204: By requesting the inclusion of a sensitive file, a malicious document
2205: might otherwise trick a privileged user into inadvertently displaying
2206: the file on the screen, revealing the file content to bystanders.
2207: .Nm
2208: only shows the path as it appears behind
2209: .Ic \&so .
2210: .It Sy ".so request failed"
2211: .Pq roff
2212: Servicing a
2213: .Ic \&so
2214: request requires reading an external file, but the file could not be
2215: opened.
2216: .Nm
2217: only shows the path as it appears behind
2218: .Ic \&so .
1.106 schwarze 2219: .It Sy "skipping all arguments"
2220: .Pq mdoc , man , eqn , roff
2221: An
2222: .Xr mdoc 7
2223: .Ic \&Bt ,
2224: .Ic \&Ed ,
2225: .Ic \&Ef ,
2226: .Ic \&Ek ,
2227: .Ic \&El ,
1.144 schwarze 2228: .Ic \&Lp ,
2229: .Ic \&Pp ,
1.106 schwarze 2230: .Ic \&Re ,
1.143 schwarze 2231: .Ic \&Rs ,
1.106 schwarze 2232: or
2233: .Ic \&Ud
2234: macro, an
2235: .Ic \&It
2236: macro in a list that don't support item heads, a
2237: .Xr man 7
2238: .Ic \&LP ,
2239: .Ic \&P ,
2240: or
2241: .Ic \&PP
2242: macro, an
2243: .Xr eqn 7
1.120 schwarze 2244: .Ic \&EQ
2245: or
1.106 schwarze 2246: .Ic \&EN
2247: macro, or a
2248: .Xr roff 7
1.148 schwarze 2249: .Ic \&br ,
2250: .Ic \&fi ,
2251: or
2252: .Ic \&nf
1.144 schwarze 2253: request or
1.106 schwarze 2254: .Sq \&..
2255: block closing request is invoked with at least one argument.
2256: All arguments are ignored.
2257: .It Sy "skipping excess arguments"
1.135 schwarze 2258: .Pq mdoc , man , roff
1.150 schwarze 2259: A macro or request is invoked with too many arguments:
2260: .Bl -dash -offset 2n -width 2n -compact
2261: .It
2262: .Ic \&Fo ,
1.206 schwarze 2263: .Ic \&MT ,
1.150 schwarze 2264: .Ic \&PD ,
2265: .Ic \&RS ,
2266: .Ic \&UR ,
2267: .Ic \&ft ,
2268: or
2269: .Ic \&sp
2270: with more than one argument
2271: .It
1.144 schwarze 2272: .Ic \&An
1.150 schwarze 2273: with another argument after
1.144 schwarze 2274: .Fl split
2275: or
1.150 schwarze 2276: .Fl nosplit
2277: .It
2278: .Ic \&RE
2279: with more than one argument or with a non-integer argument
2280: .It
2281: .Ic \&OP
2282: or a request of the
2283: .Ic \&de
2284: family with more than two arguments
1.154 schwarze 2285: .It
2286: .Ic \&Dt
1.266 schwarze 2287: or
2288: .Ic \&MR
1.154 schwarze 2289: with more than three arguments
1.150 schwarze 2290: .It
2291: .Ic \&TH
2292: with more than five arguments
2293: .It
1.145 schwarze 2294: .Ic \&Bd ,
2295: .Ic \&Bk ,
2296: or
2297: .Ic \&Bl
1.150 schwarze 2298: with invalid arguments
2299: .El
1.106 schwarze 2300: The excess arguments are ignored.
1.259 schwarze 2301: .El
2302: .Ss "Errors related to escape sequences"
2303: .Bl -ohang
2304: .It Sy "incomplete escape sequence"
2305: .Pq roff
2306: The end of the input line is encountered
2307: while parsing the argument of an escape sequence.
2308: In this case,
2309: .Ic \e*
2310: and
2311: .Ic \en
2312: expand to an empty string,
2313: .Ic \eB
2314: to the digit
2315: .Sq 0 ,
2316: and
2317: .Ic \ew
2318: to the length of the incomplete argument.
2319: All other incomplete escape sequences are ignored.
2320: .It Sy "invalid special character"
2321: .Pq roff
2322: A special character escape sequence is invalid,
2323: for example a Unicode sequence pointing to a surrogate
2324: or beyond the Unicode range, a \e[char...] escape sequence
2325: representing a control character or pointing beyond the
2326: .Vt unsigned char
2327: range, or an invalid variable-length form
2328: of a single-byte character escape sequence, for example writing
2329: .Qq \e[e]
2330: or
2331: .Qq \e[~]
2332: instead of
2333: .Qq \ee
2334: or
2335: .Qq \e~ ,
2336: respectively.
2337: The escape sequence is ignored.
2338: .It Sy "unknown special character"
2339: .Pq roff
2340: The name given in a special character escape sequence is not known to
2341: .Nm .
2342: The escape sequence is ignored.
1.260 schwarze 2343: .It Sy "invalid escape argument delimiter"
2344: .Pq roff
2345: An escape sequence that expects a numerical argument
2346: attempts to employ one of the characters
2347: .Qq " %&()*+-./0123456789:<=>"
2348: as an argument delimiter.
2349: The escape sequence is ignored including the invalid opening delimiter
2350: and the rest of the argument may appear as output text.
1.262 schwarze 2351: While various characters can be used as argument delimiters,
1.260 schwarze 2352: using the apostrophe-quote character
2353: .Pq Sq \(aq
2354: is recommended for readability and robustness.
1.133 schwarze 2355: .El
2356: .Ss Unsupported features
2357: .Bl -ohang
2358: .It Sy "input too large"
2359: .Pq mdoc , man
2360: Currently,
2361: .Nm
2362: cannot handle input files larger than its arbitrary size limit
2363: of 2^31 bytes (2 Gigabytes).
2364: Since useful manuals are always small, this is not a problem in practice.
2365: Parsing is aborted as soon as the condition is detected.
1.136 schwarze 2366: .It Sy "unsupported control character"
2367: .Pq roff
2368: An ASCII control character supported by other
2369: .Xr roff 7
2370: implementations but not by
2371: .Nm
2372: was found in an input file.
2373: It is replaced by a question mark.
1.232 schwarze 2374: .It Sy "unsupported escape sequence"
2375: .Pq roff
2376: An input file contains an escape sequence supported by GNU troff
2377: or Heirloom troff but not by
2378: .Nm ,
2379: and it is likely that this will cause information loss
2380: or considerable misformatting.
1.133 schwarze 2381: .It Sy "unsupported roff request"
2382: .Pq roff
2383: An input file contains a
2384: .Xr roff 7
2385: request supported by GNU troff or Heirloom troff but not by
2386: .Nm ,
2387: and it is likely that this will cause information loss
2388: or considerable misformatting.
1.139 schwarze 2389: .It Sy "eqn delim option in tbl"
2390: .Pq eqn , tbl
2391: The options line of a table defines equation delimiters.
2392: Any equation source code contained in the table will be printed unformatted.
2393: .It Sy "unsupported table layout modifier"
1.138 schwarze 2394: .Pq tbl
2395: A table layout specification contains an
2396: .Sq Cm m
2397: modifier.
2398: The modifier is discarded.
1.133 schwarze 2399: .It Sy "ignoring macro in table"
1.139 schwarze 2400: .Pq tbl , mdoc , man
2401: A table contains an invocation of an
2402: .Xr mdoc 7
2403: or
2404: .Xr man 7
2405: macro or of an undefined macro.
2406: The macro is ignored, and its arguments are handled
2407: as if they were a text line.
1.252 schwarze 2408: .It Sy "skipping tbl in -Tman mode"
2409: .Pq mdoc , tbl
2410: An input file contains the
2411: .Ic \&TS
2412: macro.
2413: This message is only generated in
2414: .Fl T Cm man
2415: output mode, where
2416: .Xr tbl 7
2417: input is not supported.
2418: .It Sy "skipping eqn in -Tman mode"
2419: .Pq mdoc , eqn
2420: An input file contains the
2421: .Ic \&EQ
2422: macro.
2423: This message is only generated in
2424: .Fl T Cm man
2425: output mode, where
2426: .Xr eqn 7
2427: input is not supported.
1.240 schwarze 2428: .El
2429: .Ss Bad command line arguments
2430: .Bl -ohang
2431: .It Sy "bad command line argument"
2432: The argument following one of the
2433: .Fl IKMmOTW
2434: command line options is invalid, or a
2435: .Ar file
2436: given as a command line argument cannot be opened.
2437: .It Sy "duplicate command line argument"
2438: The
2439: .Fl I
2440: command line option was specified twice.
2441: .It Sy "option has a superfluous value"
2442: An argument to the
2443: .Fl O
2444: option has a value but does not accept one.
2445: .It Sy "missing option value"
2446: An argument to the
2447: .Fl O
2448: option has no argument but requires one.
2449: .It Sy "bad option value"
2450: An argument to the
2451: .Fl O
2452: .Cm indent
2453: or
2454: .Cm width
2455: option has an invalid value.
2456: .It Sy "duplicate option value"
2457: The same
2458: .Fl O
2459: option is specified more than once.
2460: .It Sy "no such tag"
2461: The
2462: .Fl O Cm tag
2463: option was specified but the tag was not found in any of the displayed
2464: manual pages.
1.253 schwarze 2465: .It Sy "\-Tmarkdown unsupported for man(7) input"
2466: .Pq man
2467: The
2468: .Fl T Cm markdown
2469: option was specified but an input file uses the
2470: .Xr man 7
2471: language.
2472: No output is produced for that input file.
1.106 schwarze 2473: .El
1.1 kristaps 2474: .Sh SEE ALSO
1.141 schwarze 2475: .Xr apropos 1 ,
2476: .Xr man 1 ,
1.85 kristaps 2477: .Xr eqn 7 ,
1.57 kristaps 2478: .Xr man 7 ,
1.13 kristaps 2479: .Xr mandoc_char 7 ,
1.84 kristaps 2480: .Xr mdoc 7 ,
2481: .Xr roff 7 ,
2482: .Xr tbl 7
1.173 schwarze 2483: .Sh HISTORY
2484: The
2485: .Nm
2486: utility first appeared in
2487: .Ox 4.8 .
2488: The option
2489: .Fl I
2490: appeared in
2491: .Ox 5.2 ,
2492: and
2493: .Fl aCcfhKklMSsw
2494: in
2495: .Ox 5.7 .
1.1 kristaps 2496: .Sh AUTHORS
1.156 schwarze 2497: .An -nosplit
1.1 kristaps 2498: The
2499: .Nm
1.26 kristaps 2500: utility was written by
1.141 schwarze 2501: .An Kristaps Dzonsons Aq Mt kristaps@bsd.lv
2502: and is maintained by
2503: .An Ingo Schwarze Aq Mt schwarze@openbsd.org .
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