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authorIngo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>2018-08-16 14:07:11 +0000
committerIngo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>2018-08-16 14:07:11 +0000
commit0eda964d1aadc6a0e9d48b0b047de92144f8eec9 (patch)
tree2c99fe689607bc645c019c4eb6af3914a42935e3
parent27f1545e0f756e82e793a38e1bc5a55d673a6261 (diff)
downloadmandoc-0eda964d1aadc6a0e9d48b0b047de92144f8eec9.tar.gz
Document \*(.T.
While here, delete the section about predefined strings. For manual pages, the concept is not important enough to be discussed in such a prominent place, and some aspects of the text were also misleading. Add a shorter version of the relevant parts to the description of the \* escape sequence instead.
-rw-r--r--roff.761
1 files changed, 22 insertions, 39 deletions
diff --git a/roff.7 b/roff.7
index b8d40424..7d9a7f3e 100644
--- a/roff.7
+++ b/roff.7
@@ -86,13 +86,9 @@ character, and, in certain circumstances, the tab character.
The backslash character
.Sq \e
indicates the start of an escape sequence, used for example for
-.Sx Comments ,
-.Sx Special Characters ,
-.Sx Predefined Strings ,
+.Sx Comments
and
-user-defined strings defined using the
-.Sx ds
-request.
+.Sx Special Characters .
For a listing of escape sequences, consult the
.Sx ESCAPE SEQUENCE REFERENCE
below.
@@ -169,34 +165,6 @@ Text decoration is
recommended for
.Xr mdoc 7 ,
which encourages semantic annotation.
-.Ss Predefined Strings
-Predefined strings, like
-.Sx Special Characters ,
-mark special output glyphs.
-Predefined strings are escaped with the slash-asterisk,
-.Sq \e* :
-single-character
-.Sq \e*X ,
-two-character
-.Sq \e*(XX ,
-and N-character
-.Sq \e* Ns Bq N .
-.Pp
-Examples:
-.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
-.It Li \e*(Am
-Two-letter ampersand predefined string.
-.It Li \e*q
-One-letter double-quote predefined string.
-.El
-.Pp
-Predefined strings are not recommended for use,
-as they differ across implementations.
-Those supported by
-.Xr mandoc 1
-are listed in
-.Xr mandoc_char 7 .
-Manuals using these predefined strings are almost certainly not portable.
.Ss Whitespace
Whitespace consists of the space character.
In text lines, whitespace is preserved within a line.
@@ -1867,15 +1835,30 @@ with two-letter names, see
.Xr mandoc_char 7 .
.Ss \e* Ns Bq Ar name
Interpolate the string with the
-.Ar name ;
-see
-.Sx Predefined Strings
-and
-.Sx ds .
+.Ar name .
For short names, there are variants
.No \e* Ns Ar c
and
.No \e*( Ns Ar cc .
+.Pp
+One string is predefined on the
+.Nm
+language level: \e*(.T expands to the name of the output device,
+for example ascii, utf8, ps, pdf, html, or markdown.
+.Pp
+Macro sets traditionally predefine additional strings which are not
+portable and differ across implementations.
+Those supported by
+.Xr mandoc 1
+are listed in
+.Xr mandoc_char 7 .
+.Pp
+Strings can be defined, changed, and deleted with the
+.Ic \&ds ,
+.Ic \&as ,
+and
+.Ic \&rm
+requests.
.Ss \e,
Left italic correction (groff extension); ignored by
.Xr mandoc 1 .