path: root/mandoc.1

.\"	$Id$
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 2009 Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@kth.se>
.\"
.\" 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.
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.\" OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
.\"
.Dd $Mdocdate$
.Dt MANDOC 1
.Os
.
.
.Sh NAME
.Nm mandoc
.Nd format and display UNIX manuals
.
.
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm mandoc
.Op Fl V
.Op Fl f Ns Ar option...
.Op Fl m Ns Ar format
.Op Fl W Ns Ar err...
.Op Fl T Ns Ar output
.Op Ar infile...
.
.
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility formats
.Ux
manual pages for display.  The arguments are as follows:
.
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl f Ns Ar option...
Override default compiler behaviour.  See
.Sx Compiler Options
for details.
.
.It Fl m Ns Ar format
Input format.  See
.Sx Input Formats
for available formats.  Defaults to
.Fl m Ns Ar andoc .
.
.It Fl T Ns Ar output
Output format.  See
.Sx Output Formats
for available formats.  Defaults to
.Fl T Ns Ar ascii .
.
.It Fl V
Print version and exit.
.
.It Fl W Ns Ar err...
Configure warning messages.  Use
.Fl W Ns Ar all
to print warnings,
.Fl W Ns Ar error
for warnings to be considered errors and cause utility
termination.  Multiple
.Fl W
arguments may be comma-separated, such as
.Fl W Ns Ar error,all .
.
.It Ar infile...
Read input from zero or more
.Ar infile .
If unspecified, reads from stdin.  If multiple files are specified,
.Nm
will halt with the first failed parse.
.El
.
.Pp
By default,
.Nm
reads
.Xr mdoc 7
or
.Xr man 7
text from stdin, implying
.Fl m Ns Ar andoc ,
and prints 78-column backspace-encoded output to stdout as if
.Fl T Ns Ar ascii
were provided.
.
.Pp
.Ex -std mandoc
.
.
.Ss Punctuation and Spacing
If punctuation is set apart from words, such as in the phrase
.Dq to be \&, or not to be ,
it's processed by
.Nm
according to the following rules:  opening punctuation
.Po
.Sq \&( ,
.Sq \&[ ,
and
.Sq \&{
.Pc
is not followed by a space; closing punctuation
.Po
.Sq \&. ,
.Sq \&, ,
.Sq \&; ,
.Sq \&: ,
.Sq \&? ,
.Sq \&! ,
.Sq \&) ,
.Sq \&]
and
.Sq \&}
.Pc
is not preceded by whitespace.
.
.Pp
If the input is
.Xr mdoc 7 ,
these rules are also applied to macro arguments when appropriate.
.
.Pp
White-space, in non-literal (normal) mode, is stripped from input and
replaced on output by a single space.  Thus, if you wish to preserve
multiple spaces, they must be space-escaped
.Sq \e\
or used in a literal display mode, e.g.,
.Sq \&Bd \-literal
in
.Xr mdoc 7 .
.
.
.Ss Input Formats
The
.Nm
utility accepts
.Xr mdoc 7
and
.Xr man 7
input with
.Fl m Ns Ar doc
and
.Fl m Ns Ar an ,
respectively.  The
.Xr mdoc 7
format is
.Em strongly
recommended;
.Xr man 7
should only be used for legacy manuals.
.
.Pp
A third option,
.Fl m Ns Ar andoc ,
which is also the default, determines encoding on-the-fly: if the first
non-comment macro is
.Sq \&Dd
or
.Sq \&Dt ,
the
.Xr mdoc 7
parser is used; otherwise, the
.Xr man 7
parser is used.
.
.Pp
If multiple
files are specified with
.Fl m Ns Ar andoc ,
each has its file-type determined this way.  If multiple files are
specified and
.Fl m Ns Ar doc
or
.Fl m Ns Ar an
is specified, then this format is used exclusively.
.
.
.Ss Output Formats
The
.Nm
utility accepts the following
.Fl T
arguments:
.
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl T Ns Ar ascii
Produce 7-bit ASCII output, backspace-encoded for bold and underline
styles.  This is the default.
.
.It Fl T Ns Ar tree
Produce an indented parse tree.
.
.It Fl T Ns Ar lint
Parse only: produce no output.
.El
.
.Pp
If multiple input files are specified, these will be processed by the
corresponding filter in-order.
.
.
.Ss Compiler Options
Default compiler behaviour may be overriden with the
.Fl f
flag.
.
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl f Ns Ar ign-scope
When rewinding the scope of a block macro, forces the compiler to ignore
scope violations.  This can seriously mangle the resulting tree.
.Pq mdoc only
.
.It Fl f Ns Ar no-ign-escape
Don't ignore invalid escape sequences.
.
.It Fl f Ns Ar no-ign-macro
Do not ignore unknown macros at the start of input lines.
.
.It Fl f Ns Ar no-ign-chars
Do not ignore disallowed characters.
.
.It Fl f Ns Ar strict
Implies
.Fl f Ns Ar no-ign-escape ,
.Fl f Ns Ar no-ign-macro
and
.Fl f Ns Ar no-ign-chars .
.
.It Fl f Ns Ar ign-errors
Don't halt when encountering parse errors.  Useful with
.Fl T Ns Ar lint
over a large set of manuals passed on the command line.
.El
.
.Pp
As with the
.Fl W
flag, multiple
.Fl f
options may be grouped and delimited with a comma.  Using
.Fl f Ns Ar ign-scope,no-ign-escape ,
for example, will try to ignore scope and not ignore character-escape
errors.
.
.
.Sh EXAMPLES
To page manuals to the terminal:
.
.Pp
.D1 % mandoc \-Wall,error \-fstrict mandoc.1 2>&1 | less
.D1 % mandoc mandoc.1 mdoc.3 mdoc.7 | less
.
.Pp
To check over a large set of manuals:
.
.Pp
.Dl % mandoc \-Tlint \-fign-errors `find /usr/src -name \e*\e.[1-9]`
.
.
.Sh COMPATIBILITY
This section summarises
.Nm
compatibility with
.Xr groff 1 .
Each input and output format is separately noted.
.
.
.Ss ASCII output
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
The 
.Sq \e~
special character doesn't produce expected behaviour in 
.Fl T Ns Ar ascii .
.
.It
The 
.Sq \&Bd \-literal 
and 
.Sq \&Bd \-unfilled
macros of
.Xr mdoc 7
in
.Fl T Ns Ar ascii
are synonyms, as are \-filled and \-ragged.
.
.It
In 
.Xr groff 1 ,
the
.Sq \&Pa
.Xr mdoc 7
macro does not underline when scoped under an
.Sq \&It
in the FILES section.  This behaves correctly in
.Nm .
.
.It
A list or display following
.Sq \&Ss
.Xr mdoc 7
macro in
.Fl T Ns Ar ascii
does not assert a prior vertical break, just as it doesn't with
.Sq \&Sh .
.
.It
The
.Sq \&na
and
.Sq \&Dt
.Xr man 7
macros in
.Fl T Ns Ar ascii
have no effect.
.
.It
Words aren't hyphenated.
.
.It
In normal mode (not a literal block), blocks of spaces aren't preserved,
so double spaces following sentence closure are reduced to a single space;
.Xr groff 1
retains spaces.
.
.It
Sentences are unilaterally monospaced.
.El
.\" SECTION
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr mandoc_char 7 ,
.Xr mdoc 7 ,
.Xr man 7
.\" SECTION
.Sh AUTHORS
The
.Nm
utility was written by
.An Kristaps Dzonsons Aq kristaps@kth.se .