mandoc/mdoc.7 - diff

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Diff for /mandoc/mdoc.7 between version 1.26 and 1.38

version 1.26, 2009/06/11 20:02:37

version 1.38, 2009/07/06 09:21:24

Line 28 The

language is used to format

.Bx

.Ux

manuals. In this reference document, we describe the syntax, ontology

manuals. In this reference document, we describe the syntax and

and structure of the

structure of the

.Nm

language.

language. Our reference implementation is

.Xr mandoc 1 .

The

.Sx COMPATIBILITY

section describes compatibility with

.Xr groff 1 .

.\" PARAGRAPH

.Pp

Line 73 or

Line 78 or

.Sq \&.Bd \-unfilled

contexts.

.\" SUB-SECTION

.Ss Comments

Anything following a

.Sq \e"

delimiter is considered a comment (unless the

.Sq \e

itself has been escaped) and is ignored to the end of line.

Furthermore, a macro line with only a control character

.Sq \. ,

optionally followed by whitespace, is ignored.

.\" SUB-SECTION

.Ss Reserved Characters

Within a macro line, the following characters are reserved:

.Bl -tag -width 12n -offset XXXX -compact

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

.It \&.

.Pq period

.It \&,

Line 96 Within a macro line, the following characters are rese

Line 111 Within a macro line, the following characters are rese

.Pq question

.It \&!

.Pq exclamation

.It \&|

.Pq vertical bar

.El

.\" PARAGRAPH

.Pp

Line 119 or a single one-character sequence.

Line 136 or a single one-character sequence.

.Pp

Characters may alternatively be escaped by a slash-asterisk,

.Sq \e* ,

with the same combinations as described above. This form is deprecated.

with the same combinations as described above.

.Pp

Terms may also be text-decorated using the

.Sq \ef

escape followed by a text-decoration letter: B (bold), I, (italic), or P

and R (Roman, or reset). This form is not recommended.

.\" SUB-SECTION

.Ss Whitespace

Unless in literal mode or specifically escaped, consecutive blocks of

whitespace are pruned from input. These are later re-added, if

applicable, by a front-end utility such as

.Xr mandoc 1 .

.\" SECTION

.Sh STRUCTURE

Macros are classified in an ontology described by their scope rules.

Each

Some macros are allowed to deviate from their classifications to

.Nm

preserve backward-compatibility with old macro combinations still found

document must begin with the document prologue, containing, in order,

in the manual corpus. These are specifically noted on a per-macro

.Sq \&.Dd ,

basis.

.Sq \&.Dt ,

and

.Sq \&.Os .

Following these, the document body must begin with the NAME section

containing at least one

.Sq \&.Nm

followed by a

.Sq \&.Nd

macro.

.Pp

At least one free-form or macro line must follow this prologue.

.\"

.Ss Classification

Macros are classified by their scope rules. Some macros are allowed to

deviate from their classifications to preserve backward-compatibility

with old macro combinations still found in the manual corpus. These are

specifically noted on a per-macro basis.

.\" SUB-SECTION

.Ss Scope

.Bl -inset

Line 261 In-lines have \(>=0 scoped arguments.

Line 305 In-lines have \(>=0 scoped arguments.

\&.Yy \(lB\-arg \(lBval...\(rB\(rB arg0 arg1 argN

.Ed

.\"

.\" SECTION

.Sh MACROS

This section contains a complete list of all

.Nm

macros, arranged ontologically. A

macros, arranged by classification. A

.Qq callable

macro is invoked subsequent to the initial macro-line macro. A

.Qq parsable

Line 284 some

Line 328 some

.Pc

don't have heads.

.Pp

.Bl -column "MacroX" "CallableX" "ParsableX" "Closing" -compact -offset XXXX

.Bl -column -compact -offset XXXX "MacroX" "CallableX" "ParsableX" "Closing"

.It Em Macro Ta Em Callable Ta Em Parsable Ta Em Closing

.It \&.Sh Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta \&.Sh

.It \&.Ss Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta \&.Sh, \&.Ss

Line 296 None of these macros are callable or parsed. The last

Line 340 None of these macros are callable or parsed. The last

the explicit scope rules. All contains bodies, some may contain heads

.Pq So \&Bf Sc .

.Pp

.Bl -column "MacroX" "CallableX" "ParsableX" "closed by XXX" -compact -offset XXXX

.Bl -column -compact -offset XXXX "MacroX" "CallableX" "ParsableX" "closed by XXX"

.It Em Macro Ta Em Callable Ta Em Parsable Ta Em Scope

.It \&.Bd Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta closed by \&.Ed

.It \&.Ed Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta opened by \&.Bd

Line 455 then the macro accepts an arbitrary number of argument

Line 499 then the macro accepts an arbitrary number of argument

.It \&.Lb Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta 1

.It \&.Ap Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta 0

.It \&.Lp Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta 0

.It \&.Lk Ta \&No Ta Yes Ta >0

.It \&.Lk Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n

.It \&.Mt Ta \&No Ta Yes Ta >0

.It \&.Mt Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0

.It \&.Es Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta 0

.It \&.En Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta 0

.El

Line 470 and

Line 514 and

macros are obsolete.

.\" SECTION

.Sh COMPATIBILITY

The mdoc language was traditionally a

This section documents compatibility with other roff implementations, at

.Qq roff

this time limited to

macro package; most existing manuals were written with mdoc syntax

.Xr groff 1 .

dictated by system-dependent roff installations. This section documents

The term

compatibility with these systems.

.Qq historic groff

refers to those versions before the

.Pa doc.tmac

file re-write

.Pq somewhere between 1.15 and 1.19 .

.Pp

.Bl -dash -compact

.\" LIST-ITEM

.It

.Sq \&.An ,

Some character sequences in groff are not handled depending on escape

.Sq \&.Fo ,

style, e.g.,

.Sq \&.Ms ,

.Sq \e(ba

and

.Sq \&.St

.Sq \e*(Ba

historically weren't callable (they are now).

may not be interchanged. This is no longer the case: all character

sequences resolve to the same symbol, regardless the escape style.

.\" LIST-ITEM

.It

Blocks of whitespace are stripped from both macro and free-form text

lines (except when in literal mode), while groff would retain whitespace

in free-form text lines.

.\" LIST-ITEM

.It

Historic groff has many un-callable macros. Most of these (excluding

some block-level macros) are now callable, conforming to the

non-historic groff version.

.\" LIST-ITEM

.It

The vertical bar

.Sq \(ba

made historic groff

.Qq go orbital

but is a proper delimiter in this implementation.

.\" LIST-ITEM

.It

.Sq \&.It \-nested

is assumed for all lists: any list may be nested and

is assumed for all lists (it wasn't in historic groff): any list may be

nested and

.Sq \-enum

lists will restart the sequence only for the sub-list.

.\" LIST-ITEM

Line 503 The

Line 570 The

macro only accepts a single parameter.

.\" LIST-ITEM

.It

The system-name macros (

.Ns Sq \&.At ,

.Sq \&.Bsx ,

.Sq \&.Bx ,

.Sq \&.Fx ,

.Sq \&.Nx ,

.Sq \&.Ox ,

and

.Sq \&.Ux )

are callable.

.\" LIST-ITEM

.It

Some manuals use

.Sq \&.Li

incorrectly by following it with a reserved character and expecting the

delimiter to render. This is not supported.

.\" LIST-ITEM

.It

.Sq \&.Cd

If an special-character control character is escaped

is callable.

.Sq \e\e ,

it will obviously not render the subsequent sequence. Even newer

versions of groff seem to dither on this.

.El

.\" SECTION

.Sh SEE ALSO

Line 536 utility was written by

Line 593 utility was written by

.An Kristaps Dzonsons Aq kristaps@kth.se .

.\" SECTION

.Sh CAVEATS

There are several ambiguous parts of mdoc.

There are many ambiguous parts of mdoc.

.Pp

.Bl -dash -compact

.\" LIST-ITEM

Line 601 etc.).

Line 658 etc.).

There's no way to refer to references in

.Sq \&.Rs/.Re

blocks.

.\" LIST-ITEM

.It

The \-split and \-nosplit arguments to

.Sq \&.An

are inane.

.\" LIST-ITEM

.It

The end-of-line whitespace warnings are superfluous holdovers from

historic groff.

.El

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