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| author | Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org> | 2017-01-09 14:10:53 +0000 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org> | 2017-01-09 14:10:53 +0000 |
| commit | 53f41c5f2c82d63b4314e0540783fea0cb793f52 (patch) | |
| tree | 2e27372776d033bbfcf85313cb8f954e8184970a | |
| parent | a84457e0a5375a2fdc42b4f7433a57e42b8fb4f2 (diff) | |
| download | mandoc-53f41c5f2c82d63b4314e0540783fea0cb793f52.tar.gz | |
Clarify how tabs after .It work
because this is a really nasty trap for the unwary.
Triggered by a question from Abhinav Upadhyay <er dot abhinav dot
upadhyay at gmail dot com> (NetBSD) on discuss@.
| -rw-r--r-- | mdoc.7 | 24 |
1 files changed, 18 insertions, 6 deletions
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@ .\" $Id$ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 2009, 2010, 2011 Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@bsd.lv> -.\" Copyright (c) 2010, 2011, 2013 Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org> +.\" Copyright (c) 2010, 2011, 2013-2017 Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org> .\" .\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any .\" purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above @@ -1831,14 +1831,25 @@ The list is the most complicated. Its syntax is as follows: .Pp -.D1 Pf \. Sx \&It Ar cell Op <TAB> Ar cell ... .D1 Pf \. Sx \&It Ar cell Op Sx \&Ta Ar cell ... +.D1 Pf \. Sx \&It Ar cell Op <TAB> Ar cell ... .Pp The arguments consist of one or more lines of text and macros representing a complete table line. -Cells within the line are delimited by tabs or by the special +Cells within the line are delimited by the special .Sx \&Ta -block macro. +block macro or by literal tab characters. +.Pp +Using literal tabs is strongly discouraged because they are very +hard to use correctly and +.Nm +code using them is very hard to read. +In particular, a blank character is syntactically significant +before and after the literal tab character. +If a word precedes or follows the tab without an intervening blank, +that word is never interpreted as a macro call, but always output +literally. +.Pp The tab cell delimiter may only be used within the .Sx \&It line itself; on following lines, only the @@ -1853,9 +1864,10 @@ Note that quoted strings may span tab-delimited cells on an line. For example, .Pp -.Dl .It \(dqcol1 ; <TAB> col2 ;\(dq \&; +.Dl .It \(dqcol1 ,\& <TAB> col2 ,\(dq \&; .Pp -will preserve the semicolon whitespace except for the last. +will preserve the whitespace before both commas, +but not the whitespace before the semicolon. .Pp See also .Sx \&Bl . |