path: root/index.sgml

                                                                                          

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					<DIV CLASS="head">
						<B>mdocml</B> &#8211; mdoc macro compiler
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					<H1>
					DESCRIPTION
					</H1>

					<P>
					<SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> is a suite of tools compiling <Q>-mdoc</Q>, the roff macro package
					of choice for BSD manual pages, and <Q>-man</Q>, the predominant historical package for UNIX
					manuals.  The mission of <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> is to deprecate <A
					HREF="http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/" CLASS="external">groff</A>, the GNU roff implementation, for
					displaying -mdoc pages whilst providing token support for -man.
					</P>

					<P>
					Why?  groff amounts to over 5 MB of source code, most of which is C++ and all of which is GPL.  It runs
					slowly, produces uncertain output, and varies in operation from system to system.  mdocml strives to fix
					this (respectively small, C, ISC-licensed, fast and regular).
					</P>

					<P>
					The core of <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> is composed of the <i>libmdoc</i> and <i>libman</i>
					validating compiler libraries.  Both are simple, fast libraries operating on memory buffers, so they may
					be used for a variety of front-ends (terminal-based, CGI and so on).  The primary front-end is <i>
					mandoc</i>, which formats manuals for display on the terminal.
					</P>

					<P>
					The <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> utility is a <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://bsd.lv/">BSD.lv
					Project</A> member.
					</P>
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					<H1>
					SOURCES
					</H1>

					<P>
					Sources correctly build and install on DragonFly BSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and GNU/Linux operating
					systems, tested variously on i386, AMD64, alpha, and others.  The most current version is <SPAN
					CLASS="attn">@VERSION@</SPAN>, dated <SPAN class="attn">@VDATE@</SPAN>.  A full <A
					HREF="ChangeLog.html">ChangeLog</A> (<A HREF="ChangeLog.txt">txt</A>) is written with each release.
					</P>

					<H2>
					Current
					</H2>

					<TABLE WIDTH="100%" SUMMARY="Current Sources">
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							<TD>Source archive</TD>
							<TD>
							<A HREF="/snapshots/mdocml.tar.gz">/snapshots/mdocml.tar.gz</A> 
							(<A HREF="/snapshots/mdocml.md5">md5</A>)
							</TD>
						</TR>
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							<TD>Online source</TD>
							<TD>
							<A CLASS="external" HREF="http://mdocml.bsd.lv/cgi-bin/cvsweb/?cvsroot=mdocml">cvsweb</A>
							</TD>
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					<H2>
					Downstream
					</H2>

					<TABLE WIDTH="100%" SUMMARY="Downstream Sources">
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							<TD>DragonFly BSD</TD>
							<TD>
							<A HREF="http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/tree/HEAD:/usr.bin/mandoc"
								CLASS="external">usr.bin/mandoc</A>
							</TD>
						</TR>
						<TR>
							<TD>FreeBSD</TD>
							<TD>
							<A HREF="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/textproc/mdocml/" 
								CLASS="external">ports/textproc/mdocml</A>
							</TD>
						</TR>
						<TR>
							<TD>NetBSD</TD>
							<TD>
							<A HREF="http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/external/bsd/mdocml/"
								CLASS="external">src/external/bsd/mdocml</A>
							</TD>
						</TR>
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							<TD>OpenBSD</TD>
							<TD>
							<A HREF="http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/mandoc/"
								CLASS="external">src/usr.bin/mandoc</A> 
							</TD>
						</TR>
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					<H2>
					Historical
					</H2>

					<TABLE WIDTH="100%" SUMMARY="Archived Sources">
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							<TD>Source archive</TD>
							<TD>
							<A HREF="/snapshots/">/snapshots/</A> 
							</TD>
						</TR>
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					<H1>
					DOCUMENTATION
					</H1>

					<P>
					These manuals are generated automatically and refer to the current snapshot.
					</P>

					<TABLE WIDTH="100%" SUMMARY="Documentation">
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							<TD><A HREF="mandoc.1.html">mandoc(1)</A> (<A HREF="mandoc.1.txt">text</A>)</TD>
							<TD>format and display UNIX manuals</TD>
						</TR>
						<TR>
							<TD><A HREF="mandoc_char.7.html">mandoc_char(7)</A> (<A HREF="mandoc_char.7.txt">text</A>)</TD>
							<TD>mandoc special characters</TD>
						</TR>
						<TR>
							<TD><A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc(7)</A> (<A HREF="mdoc.7.txt">text</A>)</TD>
							<TD>mdoc language reference</TD>
						</TR>
						<TR>
							<TD><A HREF="man.7.html">man(7)</A> (<A HREF="man.7.txt">text</A>)</TD>
							<TD>man language reference</TD>
						</TR>
						<TR>
							<TD><A HREF="manuals.7.html">manuals(7)</A> (<A HREF="manuals.7.txt">text</A>)</TD>
							<TD>a guide to writing UNIX manuals</TD>
						</TR>
						<TR>
							<TD><A HREF="mdoc.3.html">mdoc(3)</A> (<A HREF="mdoc.3.txt">text</A>)</TD>
							<TD>mdoc macro compiler library</TD>
						</TR>
						<TR>
							<TD><A HREF="man.3.html">man(3)</A> (<A HREF="man.3.txt">text</A>)</TD>
							<TD>man macro compiler library</TD>
						</TR>
						<TR>
							<TD><A HREF="roff.7.html">roff(7)</A> (<A HREF="roff.7.txt">text</A>)</TD>
							<TD>roff language reference</TD>
						</TR>
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				</TD>
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					<H1>
					CONTACT
					</H1>

					<P>
					For all issues related to <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN>, contact Kristaps Dzonsons, kris<A
					CLASS="external"
					HREF="http://mailhide.recaptcha.net/d?k=01M6h_w7twDp58ZgH57eWC_w==&amp;c=Q2DBUt401ePlSeupJFrq_Q=="
					TITLE="Reveal this e-mail address">...</A>@bsd.lv.
					</P>

					<P>
					You may also subscribe to several mailing lists (these require subscription, which is moderated).  An
					archive is not yet available.
					</P>

					<TABLE WIDTH="100%" SUMMARY="Mailing Lists">
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						<TBODY>
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								<TD>
									disc<A CLASS="external" TITLE="Reveal this e-mail address"
									HREF="http://www.google.com/recaptcha/mailhide/d?k=01KQ80PFH5n3BBNpF5Gs4sRg==&amp;c=EV1QytpQqTHSItc2IXvZyocgYLPnG5K0JKw_gwMC9yc=">...</a>@mdocml.bsd.lv
								</TD>
								<TD>high-level discussions and version announcements</TD>
							</TR>
							<TR>
								<TD>
									tec<A CLASS="external" TITLE="Reveal this e-mail address"
									HREF="http://www.google.com/recaptcha/mailhide/d?k=014mgcCKFE_qqo9NLETCAiEA==&amp;c=-y6beh3b_SMDe6Iauc3PW-c1wlVbRqYJdj1RETN9WMs=">...</a>@mdocml.bsd.lv
								</TD>
								<TD>low-level discussions</TD>
							</TR>
							<TR>
								<TD>
									sou<A CLASS="external" TITLE="Reveal this e-mail address"
									HREF="http://www.google.com/recaptcha/mailhide/d?k=01prQrAZhhl2EbIwVcRfABsQ==&amp;c=KtTW4Yic9xk-8g40KzJoca4fR3MYXv28g8NC6OQV-T8=">...</a>@mdocml.bsd.lv
								</TD>
								<TD>source commit messages</TD>
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					<H1>
					NEWS
					</H1>

					<TABLE WIDTH="100%" CELLPADDING="2">
						<COL CLASS="date">
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							<TR>
								<TD VALIGN="top"><SPAN CLASS="date">xx-05-2010</SPAN></TD>
								Day 1 of Rostock hackathon: proper handling of quotations in tab-separated
								column lists, finished patching of SYNOPSIS breaking (1.9.25), fixed pre-comment
								white-space stripping, added end-of-sentence spacing to black partial-implicit
								macros, relaxed column warnings, relaxed acceptence of bad standards arguments,
								significant documentation of lists in <A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc(7)</A>.
								Version: <SPAN CLASS="rev">1.9.26</SPAN>.
								<TD VALIGN="top">
							</TR>
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								<TD VALIGN="top"><SPAN CLASS="date">13-05-2010</SPAN></TD>
								<TD VALIGN="top">
								Fixed handling of <Q>\*(Ba</Q> escape.  Backed out <SPAN
								CLASS="flag">-fno-ign-chars</SPAN> (pointless complexity).  Fixed erroneous
								breaking of literal lines.  Fixed SYNOPSIS breaking lines before non-initial
								macros.  Changed default section ordering.  Most importantly, the framework for
								end-of-sentence double-spacing is in place, now implemented for the
								<Q>end-of-sentence, end-of-line</Q> rule.  This is a stable roll-back point
								before the mandoc hackathon in Rostock!
								Version: <SPAN CLASS="rev">1.9.25</SPAN>.
							</TR>
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								<TD VALIGN="top"><SPAN CLASS="date">09-05-2010</SPAN></TD>
								<TD VALIGN="top">
								Rolled back break-at-hyphen.  <SPAN CLASS="flag">-DUGLY</SPAN> is now the
								default (no feature splits!).  Free-form text is not de-chunked any more: lines
								are passed whole-sale into the front-end, including whitespace.  Added mailing
								lists.  Lastly, <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> is the focus of two <A
								CLASS="external" HREF="http://socghop.appspot.com/">Google Summer of Code</A>
								projects this year: <Q><A CLASS="external"
								HREF="http://netbsd-soc.sourceforge.net/projects/mandoc_ps/">mandoc -Tps</A></Q>
								(NetBSD) and <Q><A CLASS="external"
								HREF="http://wiki.freebsd.org/SummerOfCode2010Projects">BSD-licensed
								Text-Processing Tools</A></Q> (FreeBSD).
								Version: <SPAN CLASS="rev">1.9.24</SPAN>.
								</TD>
							</TR>

							<TR>
								<TD VALIGN="top"><SPAN CLASS="date">07-04-2010</SPAN></TD>
								<TD VALIGN="top">
								<SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> has been linked to the <A CLASS="external"
								HREF="http://www.openbsd.org/faq/current.html#20100403">OpenBSD build</a>.  This
								version incorporates many small changes, mostly from patches by OpenBSD,
								allowing crufty manuals to slip by with warnings instead of erroring-out.  Some
								subtle semantic issues, such as punctuation scope, have also been fixed.
								Lastly, some issues with <SPAN CLASS="flag">-Thtml</SPAN> have been fixed, which
								prompted an update to the <A HREF="mandoc.1.html">online</A> <A
								HREF="mandoc_char.7.html">manual</A> <A HREF="man.7.html">pages</A> style
								layout.  Version: <SPAN CLASS="rev">1.9.23</SPAN>.
								</TD>
							</TR>
							<TR>
								<TD VALIGN="top"><SPAN CLASS="date">31-03-2010</SPAN></TD>
								<TD VALIGN="top">
								Version <SPAN CLASS="rev">1.9.22</SPAN>: adjusted merge of the significant work
								by Ingo Schwarze in getting <Q>Xo</Q> blocks (block full implicit, e.g.,
								<Q>It</Q> for non-columnar lists) to work properly.  This isn't enabled by
								default: you must specify <SPAN CLASS="flag">-DUGLY</SPAN> as a compiler flag
								(see the Makefile for details).
								</TD>
							</TR>
							<TR>
								<TD VALIGN="top"><SPAN CLASS="date">30-03-2010</SPAN></TD>
								<TD VALIGN="top">
								Version <SPAN CLASS="rev">1.9.20</SPAN>: more efforts to get roff instructions
								in -man documents under control.  Note that roff instructions embedded in
								line-scoped, next-line macros (e.g. <Q>B</Q>) are not supported.  Leading
								punctuation for -mdoc macros, such as <Q>Fl ( ( a</Q>, are now correctly
								handled.
								</TD>
							</TR>
							<TR>
								<TD VALIGN="top"><SPAN CLASS="date">27-03-2010</SPAN></TD>
								<TD VALIGN="top">
								Version <SPAN CLASS="rev">1.9.18</SPAN>: many fixes (largely pertaining to
								scope) and improvements (e.g., handling of apostrophe-control macros, which
								fixes the strange <Q>BR</Q> seen in some macro output) to handling roff
								instructions in -man documents.
								</TD>
							</TR>
							<TR>
								<TD VALIGN="top"><SPAN CLASS="date">25-03-2010</SPAN></TD>
								<TD VALIGN="top">
								Version <SPAN CLASS="rev">1.9.17</SPAN> highlights: accept <A
								HREF="http://perldoc.perl.org/" CLASS="external">perlpod</A> standard preamble.
								Also accept (and discard) <Q>de</Q>, <Q>dei</Q>, <Q>am</Q>, <Q>ami</Q>, and
								<Q>ig</Q> roff macro blocks.
								</TD>
							</TR>
							<TR>
								<TD VALIGN="top"><SPAN CLASS="date">22-03-2010</SPAN></TD>
								<TD VALIGN="top">
								Version <SPAN CLASS="rev">1.9.16</SPAN> highlights: inspired by patches and bug
								reports by Ingo Schwarze, allowed <SPAN CLASS="flag">-man</SPAN> to accept
								non-printing elements to be nested within next-line scopes, such as <Q>br</Q>
								within <Q>B</Q> or <Q>TH</Q>, which is valid roff.  Longsoon architecture also
								noted and Makefile cleaned up.
								</TD>
							</TR>
							<TR>
								<TD VALIGN="top"><SPAN CLASS="date">18-02-2010</SPAN></TD>
								<TD VALIGN="top">
								Moved to our new <A HREF="http://bsd.lv" CLASS="external">BSD.lv</A> home.
								Version <SPAN CLASS="rev">1.9.15</SPAN> highlights: XHTML is now an acceptable
								output mode for <A HREF="mandoc.1.html">mandoc(1)</A>;  <Q>Xr</Q> made more
								compatible with groff; <Q>Vt</Q> fixed when invoked in SYNOPSIS;  <Q>\\</Q>
								escape removed; end-of-line white-space detected for all lines;  subtle bug
								fixed in list display for some modes;  compatibility layer checked in for
								compilation in diverse UNIX systems;  and column lengths handled correctly.
								</TD>
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					<DIV CLASS="foot">
						Copyright &#169; 2008&#8211;2010 Kristaps Dzonsons, $Date$
					</DIV>
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