Reorganize part of the content:

1) Move the LANGUAGE SYNTAX from mdoc(7) and man(7) to roff(7),
it's common to both and it's actually roff syntax.
2) Move the MACRO SYNTAX down to the bottom, such that the less
technical parts MANUAL STRUCTURE and MACRO OVERVIEW get to the top.

Getting everything to again fit together after the reshuffling
required various adjustments; also adjust and improve
the DESCRIPTIONS while there.

feedback and "go ahead"  jmc@ kristaps@

1 files changed, 291 insertions, 27 deletions

diff --git a/roff.7 b/roff.7
index d3744a1c..d67e374e 100644
--- a/roff.7
+++ b/roff.7
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 .\"	$Id$
 .\"
-.\" Copyright (c) 2010 Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@bsd.lv>
-.\" Copyright (c) 2010 Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>
+.\" Copyright (c) 2010, 2011 Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@bsd.lv>
+.\" Copyright (c) 2010, 2011 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
@@ -25,38 +25,279 @@
 The
 .Nm roff
 language is a general purpose text formatting language.
-In particular, it serves as the basis for the
+Since traditional implementations of the
 .Xr mdoc 7
 and
 .Xr man 7
-manual formatting macro languages.
-This manual describes the subset of the
+manual formatting languages are based on it,
+many real-world manuals use small numbers of
 .Nm
-language accepted by the
+requests intermixed with their
+.Xr mdoc 7
+or
+.Xr man 7
+code.
+To properly format such manuals, the
 .Xr mandoc 1
-utility.
+utility supports a tiny subset of
+.Nm
+requests.
+Only these requests supported by
+.Xr mandoc 1
+are documented in the present manual,
+together with the basic language syntax shared by
+.Nm ,
+.Xr mdoc 7 ,
+and
+.Xr man 7 .
+For complete
+.Nm
+manuals, consult the
+.Sx SEE ALSO
+section.
 .Pp
-Input lines beginning with the control characters
+Input lines beginning with the control character
 .Sq \&.
-or
-.Sq \(aq
 are parsed for requests and macros.
-These define the document structure, change the processing state
-and manipulate the formatting.
-Some requests and macros also produce formatted output,
-while others do not.
-.Pp
-All other input lines provide free-form text to be printed;
-the formatting of free-form text depends on the respective
-processing context.
+Such lines are called
+.Dq request lines
+or
+.Dq macro lines ,
+respectively.
+Requests change the processing state and manipulate the formatting;
+some macros also define the document structure and produce formatted
+output.
+The single quote
+.Pq Qq \(aq
+is accepted as an alternative control character,
+treated by
+.Xr mandoc 1
+just like
+.Ql \&.
+.Pp
+Lines not beginning with control characters are called
+.Dq text lines .
+They provide free-form text to be printed; the formatting of the text
+depends on the respective processing context.
 .Sh LANGUAGE SYNTAX
 .Nm
 documents may contain only graphable 7-bit ASCII characters, the space
 character, and, in certain circumstances, the tab character.
-To produce other characters in the output, use the escape sequences
-documented in the
+The back-space character
+.Sq \e
+indicates the start of an escape sequence for
+.Sx Comments ,
+.Sx Special Characters ,
+.Sx Predefined Strings ,
+and
+user-defined strings defined using the
+.Sx ds
+request.
+.Ss Comments
+Text following an escaped double-quote
+.Sq \e\(dq ,
+whether in a request, macro, or text line, is ignored to the end of the line.
+A request line beginning with a control character and comment escape
+.Sq \&.\e\(dq
+is also ignored.
+Furthermore, request lines with only a control character and optional
+trailing whitespace are stripped from input.
+.Pp
+Examples:
+.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact
+\&.\e\(dq This is a comment line.
+\&.\e\(dq The next line is ignored:
+\&.
+\&.Sh EXAMPLES \e\(dq This is a comment, too.
+\&example text \e\(dq And so is this.
+.Ed
+.Ss Special Characters
+Special characters are used to encode special glyphs and are rendered
+differently across output media.
+They may occur in request, macro, and text 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.
+.Pp
+Examples:
+.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
+.It Li \e(em
+Two-letter em dash escape.
+.It Li \ee
+One-letter backslash escape.
+.El
+.Pp
+See
 .Xr mandoc_char 7
-manual.
+for a complete list.
+.Ss Text Decoration
+Terms may be text-decorated using the
+.Sq \ef
+escape followed by an indicator: B (bold), I (italic), R (regular), or P
+(revert to previous mode).
+A numerical representation 3, 2, or 1 (bold, italic, and regular,
+respectively) may be used instead.
+.Pp
+Examples:
+.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
+.It Li \efBbold\efR
+Write in bold, then switch to regular font mode.
+.It Li \efIitalic\efP
+Write in italic, then return to previous font mode.
+.El
+.Pp
+Text decoration is
+.Em not
+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*[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.
+In request and macro lines, whitespace delimits arguments and is discarded.
+.Pp
+Unescaped trailing spaces are stripped from text line input unless in a
+literal context.
+In general, trailing whitespace on any input line is discouraged for
+reasons of portability.
+In the rare case that a blank character is needed at the end of an
+input line, it may be forced by
+.Sq \e\ \e& .
+.Pp
+Literal space characters can be produced in the output
+using escape sequences.
+In macro lines, they can also be included in arguments using quotation; see
+.Sx MACRO SYNTAX
+for details.
+.Pp
+Blank text lines, which may include whitespace, are only permitted
+within literal contexts.
+If the first character of a text line is a space, that line is printed
+with a leading newline.
+.Ss Scaling Widths
+Many requests and macros support scaled widths for their arguments.
+The syntax for a scaled width is
+.Sq Li [+-]?[0-9]*.[0-9]*[:unit:] ,
+where a decimal must be preceded or followed by at least one digit.
+Negative numbers, while accepted, are truncated to zero.
+.Pp
+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.
+.Pp
+Examples:
+.Bl -tag -width ".Bl -tag -width 2i" -offset indent -compact
+.It Li \&.Bl -tag -width 2i
+two-inch tagged list indentation in
+.Xr mdoc 7
+.It Li \&.HP 2i
+two-inch tagged list indentation in
+.Xr man 7
+.It Li \&.sp 2v
+two vertical spaces
+.El
+.Ss Sentence Spacing
+Each sentence should terminate at the end of an input line.
+By doing this, a formatter will be able to apply the proper amount of
+spacing after the end of sentence (unescaped) period, exclamation mark,
+or question mark followed by zero or more non-sentence closing
+delimiters
+.Po
+.Sq \&) ,
+.Sq \&] ,
+.Sq \&' ,
+.Sq \&"
+.Pc .
+.Pp
+The proper spacing is also intelligently preserved if a sentence ends at
+the boundary of a macro line.
+.Pp
+Examples:
+.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact
+Do not end sentences mid-line like this.  Instead,
+end a sentence like this.
+A macro would end like this:
+\&.Xr mandoc 1 \&.
+.Ed
 .Sh REQUEST SYNTAX
 A request or macro line consists of:
 .Pp
@@ -83,20 +324,25 @@ Thus, the following request lines are all equivalent:
 \&.   ig end
 .Ed
 .Sh MACRO SYNTAX
-Macros can be defined by the
+Macros are provided by the
+.Xr mdoc 7
+and
+.Xr man 7
+languages and can be defined by the
 .Sx \&de
 request.
 When called, they follow the same syntax as requests, except that
 macro arguments may optionally be quoted by enclosing them
 in double quote characters
 .Pq Sq \(dq .
-To be recognised as the beginning of a quoted argument, the opening
-quote character must be preceded by a space character.
-.Pp
-A quoted argument may contain whitespace, and pairs of double quote
-characters
+Quoted text, even if it contains whitespace or would cause
+a macro invocation when unquoted, is always considered literal text.
+Inside quoted text, pairs of double quote characters
 .Pq Sq Qq
 resolve to single double quote characters.
+.Pp
+To be recognised as the beginning of a quoted argument, the opening
+quote character must be preceded by a space character.
 A quoted argument extends to the next double quote character that is not
 part of a pair, or to the end of the input line, whichever comes earlier.
 Leaving out the terminating double quote character at the end of the line
@@ -114,6 +360,24 @@ In unquoted arguments, space characters can alternatively be included
 by preceding them with a backslash
 .Pq Sq \e\~ ,
 but quoting is usually better for clarity.
+.Pp
+Examples:
+.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
+.It Li .Fn strlen \(dqconst char *s\(dq
+Group arguments
+.Qq const char *s
+into one function argument.
+If unspecified,
+.Qq const ,
+.Qq char ,
+and
+.Qq *s
+would be considered separate arguments.
+.It Li .Op \(dqFl a\(dq
+Consider
+.Qq \&Fl a
+as literal text instead of a flag macro.
+.El
 .Sh REQUEST REFERENCE
 The
 .Xr mandoc 1