.\" $Id: man.7,v 1.42 2009/10/31 08:37:26 kristaps Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 2009 Kristaps Dzonsons .\" .\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any .\" purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above .\" copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies. .\" .\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES .\" WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF .\" MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR .\" ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES .\" WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN .\" ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF .\" OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE. .\" .Dd $Mdocdate: October 31 2009 $ .Dt MAN 7 .Os . . .Sh NAME .Nm man .Nd man language reference . . .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm man language was historically used to format .Ux manuals. This reference document describes its syntax, structure, and usage. . .Pp .Bf -emphasis Do not use .Nm to write your manuals. .Ef Use the .Xr mdoc 7 language, instead. . .Pp An .Nm document follows simple rules: lines beginning with the control character .Sq \&. are parsed for macros. Other lines are interpreted within the scope of prior macros: .Bd -literal -offset indent \&.SH Macro lines change control state. Other lines are interpreted within the current state. .Ed . . .Sh INPUT ENCODING .Nm documents may contain only graphable 7-bit ASCII characters, the space character, and the tabs character. All manuals must have .Ux line termination. . .Pp Blank lines are acceptable; where found, the output will assert a vertical space. . .Pp The .Sq \ec escape is common in historical .Nm documents; if encountered at the end of a word, it ensures that the subsequent word isn't off-set by whitespace. . . .Ss Comments Text following a .Sq \e\*" , whether in a macro or free-form text line, is ignored to the end of line. A macro line with only a control character and comment escape, .Sq \&.\e" , is also ignored. Macro lines with only a control charater and optionally whitespace are stripped from input. . . .Ss Special Characters Special characters may occur in both macro and free-form lines. Sequences begin with the escape character .Sq \e followed by either an open-parenthesis .Sq \&( for two-character sequences; an open-bracket .Sq \&[ for n-character sequences (terminated at a close-bracket .Sq \&] ) ; or a single one-character sequence. 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), or P and R (Roman, or reset). . . .Ss Whitespace Unless 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 . . .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 .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. The following scaling units are accepted: . .Pp .Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact .It c centimetre .It i inch .It P pica (~1/6 inch) .It p point (~1/72 inch) .It f synonym for .Sq u .It v default vertical span .It m width of rendered .Sq m .Pq em character .It n width of rendered .Sq n .Pq en character .It u default horizontal span .It M mini-em (~1/100 em) .El .Pp Using anything other than .Sq m , .Sq n , .Sq u , or .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 .Sq v for vertical spaces and .Sq u for horizontal ones. .Em Note : this differs from .Xr mdoc 7 , which, if a unit is not provided, will instead interpret the string as literal text. . . .Sh MANUAL STRUCTURE Each .Nm document must contain contains at least the .Sx \&TH macro describing the document's section and title. It may occur anywhere in the document, although conventionally, it appears as the first macro. . .Pp Beyond .Sx \&TH , at least one macro or text node must appear in the document. Documents are generally structured as follows: .Bd -literal -offset indent \&.TH FOO 1 "13 Aug 2009" \&. \&.SH NAME \efBfoo\efR \e(en a description goes here \&.\e\*q The next is for sections 2 & 3 only. \&.\e\*q .SH LIBRARY \&. \&.SH SYNOPSIS \efBfoo\efR [\efB\e-options\efR] arguments... \&. \&.SH DESCRIPTION The \efBfoo\efR utility processes files... \&. \&.\e\*q .SH IMPLEMENTATION NOTES \&.\e\*q The next is for sections 1 & 8 only. \&.\e\*q .SH EXIT STATUS \&.\e\*q The next is for sections 2, 3, & 9 only. \&.\e\*q .SH RETURN VALUES \&.\e\*q The next is for sections 1, 6, 7, & 8 only. \&.\e\*q .SH ENVIRONMENT \&.\e\*q .SH FILES \&.\e\*q .SH EXAMPLES \&.\e\*q The next is for sections 1, 4, 6, 7, & 8 only. \&.\e\*q .SH DIAGNOSTICS \&.\e\*q The next is for sections 2, 3, & 9 only. \&.\e\*q .SH ERRORS \&.\e\*q .SH SEE ALSO \&.\e\*q .BR foo ( 1 ) \&.\e\*q .SH STANDARDS \&.\e\*q .SH HISTORY \&.\e\*q .SH AUTHORS \&.\e\*q .SH CAVEATS \&.\e\*q .SH BUGS \&.\e\*q .SH SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS .Ed .Pp The sections in a .Nm document are conventionally ordered as they appear above. Sections should be composed as follows: .Bl -ohang -offset indent .It Em NAME The name(s) and a short description of the documented material. The syntax for this is generally as follows: .Pp .D1 \efBname\efR \e(en description .It Em LIBRARY The name of the library containing the documented material, which is assumed to be a function in a section 2 or 3 manual. For functions in the C library, this may be as follows: .Pp .D1 Standard C Library (libc, -lc) .It Em SYNOPSIS Documents the utility invocation syntax, function call syntax, or device configuration. .Pp For the first, utilities (sections 1, 6, and 8), this is generally structured as follows: .Pp .D1 \efBname\efR [-\efBab\efR] [-\efBc\efR\efIarg\efR] \efBpath\efR... .Pp For the second, function calls (sections 2, 3, 9): .Pp .D1 \. Ns Sx \&B No char *name(char *\efIarg\efR); .Pp And for the third, configurations (section 4): .Pp .D1 \. Ns Sx \&B No name* at cardbus ? function ? .Pp Manuals not in these sections generally don't need a .Em SYNOPSIS . .It Em DESCRIPTION This expands upon the brief, one-line description in .Em NAME . It usually contains a break-down of the options (if documenting a command). .It Em IMPLEMENTATION NOTES Implementation-specific notes should be kept here. This is useful when implementing standard functions that may have side effects or notable algorithmic implications. .It Em EXIT STATUS Command exit status for section 1, 6, and 8 manuals. This section is the dual of .Em RETURN VALUES , which is used for functions. Historically, this information was described in .Em DIAGNOSTICS , a practise that is now discouraged. . .It Em RETURN VALUES This section is the dual of .Em EXIT STATUS , which is used for commands. It documents the return values of functions in sections 2, 3, and 9. . .It Em ENVIRONMENT Documents any usages of environment variables, e.g., .Xr environ 7 . . .It Em FILES Documents files used. It's helpful to document both the file and a short description of how the file is used (created, modified, etc.). . .It Em EXAMPLES Example usages. This often contains snippets of well-formed, well-tested invocations. Make doubly sure that your examples work properly! Assume that users will skip to this section and use your example verbatim. . .It Em DIAGNOSTICS Documents error conditions. This is most useful in section 4 manuals. Historically, this section was used in place of .Em EXIT STATUS for manuals in sections 1, 6, and 8; however, this practise is discouraged. . .It Em ERRORS Documents error handling in sections 2, 3, and 9. . .It Em SEE ALSO References other manuals with related topics. This section should exist for most manuals. Cross-references should conventionally be ordered first by section, then alphabetically. .Pp .D1 \. Ns Sx \&BR No bar \&( 1 \&), .D1 \. Ns Sx \&BR No foo \&( 1 \&), .D1 \. Ns Sx \&BR No baz \&( 2 \&). . .It Em STANDARDS References any standards implemented or used, such as .Pp .D1 IEEE Std 1003.2 (\e(lqPOSIX.2\e(rq) .Pp If not adhering to any standards, the .Em HISTORY section should be used. . .It Em HISTORY The history of any manual without a .Em STANDARDS section should be described in this section. . .It Em AUTHORS Credits to authors, if applicable, should appear in this section. Authors should generally be noted by both name and an e-mail address. . .It Em CAVEATS Explanations of common misuses and misunderstandings should be explained in this section. . .It Em BUGS Extant bugs should be described in this section. . .It Em SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS Documents any security precautions that operators should consider. . .El . . .Sh MACRO SYNTAX Macros are one to three three characters in length and begin with a control character , .Sq \&. , at the beginning of the line. An arbitrary amount of whitespace may sit between the control character and the macro name. Thus, the following are equivalent: .Bd -literal -offset indent \&.PP \&.\ \ \ PP .Ed . .Pp The .Nm macros are classified by scope: line scope or block scope. Line macros are only scoped to the current line (and, in some situations, the subsequent line). Block macros are scoped to the current line and subsequent lines until closed by another block macro. . . .Ss Line Macros Line macros are generally scoped to the current line, with the body consisting of zero or more arguments. If a macro is scoped to the next line and the line arguments are empty, the next line is used instead, else the general syntax is used. Thus: .Bd -literal -offset indent \&.I foo .Ed . .Pp is equivalent to .Sq \&.I foo . If next-line macros are invoked consecutively, only the last is used. If a next-line macro is proceded by a block macro, it is ignored. .Bd -literal -offset indent \&.YO \(lBbody...\(rB \(lBbody...\(rB .Ed . .Pp .Bl -column -compact -offset indent "MacroX" "ArgumentsX" "ScopeXXXXX" .It Em Macro Ta Em Arguments Ta Em Scope .It Sx \&B Ta n Ta next-line .It Sx \&BI Ta n Ta current .It Sx \&BR Ta n Ta current .It Sx \&DT Ta 0 Ta current .It Sx \&I Ta n Ta next-line .It Sx \&IB Ta n Ta current .It Sx \&IR Ta n Ta current .It Sx \&PD Ta n Ta current .It Sx \&R Ta n Ta next-line .It Sx \&RB Ta n Ta current .It Sx \&RI Ta n Ta current .It Sx \&SB Ta n Ta next-line .It Sx \&SM Ta n Ta next-line .It Sx \&TH Ta >1, <6 Ta current .It Sx \&UC Ta n Ta current .It Sx \&br Ta 0 Ta current .It Sx \&fi Ta 0 Ta current .It Sx \&i Ta n Ta current .It Sx \&na Ta 0 Ta current .It Sx \&nf Ta 0 Ta current .It Sx \&r Ta 0 Ta current .It Sx \&sp Ta 1 Ta current .El . .Pp The .Sx \&PD , .Sx \&RS , .Sx \&RE , .Sx \&UC , .Sx \&br , .Sx \&fi , .Sx \&i , .Sx \&na , .Sx \&nf , .Sx \&r , and .Sx \&sp macros should not be used. They're included for compatibility. . . .Ss Block Macros Block macros are comprised of a head and body. Like for in-line macros, the head is scoped to the current line and, in one circumstance, the next line; the body is scoped to subsequent lines and is closed out by a subsequent block macro invocation. .Bd -literal -offset indent \&.YO \(lBhead...\(rB \(lBhead...\(rB \(lBbody...\(rB .Ed . .Pp The closure of body scope may be to the section, where a macro is closed by .Sx \&SH ; sub-section, closed by a section or .Sx \&SS ; part, closed by a section, sub-section, or .Sx \&RE ; or paragraph, closed by a section, sub-section, part, .Sx \&HP , .Sx \&IP , .Sx \&LP , .Sx \&P , .Sx \&PP , or .Sx \&TP . No closure refers to an explicit block closing macro. . .Pp .Bl -column "MacroX" "ArgumentsX" "Head ScopeX" "sub-sectionX" -compact -offset indent .It Em Macro Ta Em Arguments Ta Em Head Scope Ta Em Body Scope .It Sx \&HP Ta <2 Ta current Ta paragraph .It Sx \&IP Ta <3 Ta current Ta paragraph .It Sx \&LP Ta 0 Ta current Ta paragraph .It Sx \&P Ta 0 Ta current Ta paragraph .It Sx \&PP Ta 0 Ta current Ta paragraph .It Sx \&RE Ta 0 Ta current Ta none .It Sx \&RS Ta 1 Ta current Ta part .It Sx \&SH Ta >0 Ta next-line Ta section .It Sx \&SS Ta >0 Ta next-line Ta sub-section .It Sx \&TP Ta n Ta next-line Ta paragraph .El . .Pp If a block macro is next-line scoped, it may only be followed by in-line macros (excluding .Sx \&DT , .Sx \&PD , .Sx \&TH , .Sx \&UC , .Sx \&br , .Sx \&na , .Sx \&sp , .Sx \&nf , and .Sx \&fi ) . . . .Sh REFERENCE This section is a canonical reference to all macros, arranged alphabetically. For the scoping of individual macros, see .Sx MACRO SYNTAX . . .Ss \&B Text is rendered in bold face. .Ss \&BI Text is rendered alternately in bold face and italic. Thus, .Sq .BI this word and that causes .Sq this and .Sq and to render in bold face, while .Sq word and .Sq that render in italics. Whitespace between arguments is omitted in output. .Ss \&BR Text is rendered alternately in bold face and roman (the default font). Whitespace between arguments is omitted in output. .Ss \&DT Has no effect. Included for compatibility. .Ss \&HP Begin a paragraph whose initial output line is left-justified, but subsequent output lines are indented, with the following syntax: .Bd -literal -offset indent \&.HP [width] .Ed . .Pp If scaling width .Va width is specified, it's saved for later paragraph left-margins; if unspecified, the saved or default width is used. .Ss \&I Text is rendered in italics. .Ss \&IB Text is rendered alternately in italics and bold face. Whitespace between arguments is omitted in output. .Ss \&IP Begin a paragraph with the following syntax: .Bd -literal -offset indent \&.IP [head [width]] .Ed . .Pp This follows the behaviour of the .Sx \&TP except for the macro syntax (all arguments on the line, instead of having next-line scope). If .Va width is specified, it's saved for later paragraph left-margins; if unspecified, the saved or default width is used. .Ss \&IR Text is rendered alternately in italics and roman (the default font). Whitespace between arguments is omitted in output. .Ss \&LP Begin an undecorated paragraph. The scope of a paragraph is closed by a subsequent paragraph, sub-section, section, or end of file. The saved paragraph left-margin width is re-set to the default. .Ss \&P Synonym for .Sx \&LP . .Ss \&PP Synonym for .Sx \&LP . .Ss \&R Text is rendered in roman (the default font). .Ss \&RB Text is rendered alternately in roman (the default font) and bold face. Whitespace between arguments is omitted in output. .Ss \&RE Explicitly close out the scope of a prior .Sx \&RS . .Ss \&RI Text is rendered alternately in roman (the default font) and italics. Whitespace between arguments is omitted in output. .Ss \&RS Begin a part setting the left margin. The left margin controls the offset, following an initial indentation, to un-indented text such as that of .Sx \&PP . A scaling width may be specified as following: .Bd -literal -offset indent \&.RS [width] .Ed . .Pp If .Va width is not specified, the saved or default width is used. .Ss \&SB Text is rendered in small size (one point smaller than the default font) bold face. .Ss \&SH Begin a section. The scope of a section is only closed by another section or the end of file. The paragraph left-margin width is re-set to the default. .Ss \&SM Text is rendered in small size (one point smaller than the default font). .Ss \&SS Begin a sub-section. The scope of a sub-section is closed by a subsequent sub-section, section, or end of file. The paragraph left-margin width is re-set to the default. .Ss \&TH Sets the title of the manual page with the following syntax: .Bd -literal -offset indent \&.TH title section [date [source [volume]]] .Ed . .Pp At least the .Va title and .Va section arguments must be provided. The .Va date argument should be formatted as .Qq %b [%d] %Y format, described in .Xr strptime 3 . The .Va source string specifies the organisation providing the utility. The .Va volume replaces the default rendered volume as dictated by the manual section. .Ss \&TP Begin a paragraph where the head, if exceeding the indentation width, is followed by a newline; if not, the body follows on the same line after a buffer to the indentation width. Subsequent output lines are indented. . .Pp The indentation scaling width may be set as follows: .Bd -literal -offset indent \&.TP [width] .Ed . .Pp If .Va width is specified, it's saved for later paragraph left-margins; if unspecified, the saved or default width is used. .Ss \&PD Has no effect. Included for compatibility. .Ss \&UC Has no effect. Included for compatibility. .Ss \&br Breaks the current line. Consecutive invocations have no further effect. .Ss \&fi End literal mode begun by .Sx \&nf . .Ss \&i Italicise arguments. If no arguments are specified, all subsequent text is italicised. .Ss \&na Don't align to the right margin. .Ss \&nf Begin literal mode: all subsequent free-form lines have their end of line boundaries preserved. May be ended by .Sx \&fi . .Ss \&r Fonts and styles (bold face, italics) reset to roman (default font). .Ss \&sp Insert n spaces, where n is the macro's positive numeric argument. If 0, this is equivalent to the .Sx \&br macro. . . .Sh COMPATIBILITY This section documents compatibility with other roff implementations, at this time limited to .Xr groff 1 . .Bl -hyphen .It In quoted literals, groff allowed pair-wise double-quotes to produce a standalone double-quote in formatted output. This idiosyncratic behaviour is no longer applicable. .It The .Sq sp macro does not accept negative numbers. .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. .El . . .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr mandoc 1 , .Xr mandoc_char 7 . . .Sh AUTHORS The .Nm reference was written by .An Kristaps Dzonsons Aq kristaps@kth.se . . . .Sh CAVEATS Do not use this language. Use .Xr mdoc 7 , instead. .