path: root/roff.7

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.\" Copyright (c) 2010 Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@bsd.lv>
.\" Copyright (c) 2010 Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>
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.Dd $Mdocdate$
.Dt ROFF 7
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm roff
.Nd roff language reference
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm roff
language is a general-purpose text-formatting language.  The purpose of
this document is to consistently describe those language constructs
accepted by the
.Xr mandoc 1
utility.  It is a work in progress.
.Pp
An
.Nm
document follows simple rules:  lines beginning with the control
characters
.Sq \.
or
.Sq \(aq
are parsed for macros.  Other lines are interpreted within the scope of
prior macros:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
\&.xx Macro lines change control state.
Other lines are interpreted within the current state.
.Ed
.Sh LANGUAGE SYNTAX
.Nm
documents may contain only graphable 7-bit ASCII characters, the space
character, and, in certain circumstances, the tab character.  All
manuals must have
.Ux
line terminators.
.Sh MACRO SYNTAX
Macros are arbitrary in length and begin with a control character ,
.Sq \.
or
.Sq \(aq ,
at the beginning of the line.
An arbitrary amount of whitespace may sit between the control character
and the macro name.
Thus, the following are equivalent:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
\&.if
\&.\ \ \ \&if
.Ed
.Sh REFERENCE
This section is a canonical reference of all macros, arranged
alphabetically.
.Ss \&am
The syntax of this macro is the same as that of
.Sx \&ig ,
except that a leading argument must be specified.
It is ignored, as are its children.
.Ss \&ami
The syntax of this macro is the same as that of
.Sx \&ig ,
except that a leading argument must be specified.
It is ignored, as are its children.
.Ss \&am1
The syntax of this macro is the same as that of
.Sx \&ig ,
except that a leading argument must be specified.
It is ignored, as are its children.
.Ss \&de
The syntax of this macro is the same as that of
.Sx \&ig ,
except that a leading argument must be specified.
It is ignored, as are its children.
.Ss \&dei
The syntax of this macro is the same as that of
.Sx \&ig ,
except that a leading argument must be specified.
It is ignored, as are its children.
.Ss \&ds
Define a reserved word.
Its syntax is as follows:
.Pp
.D1 Pf \. Sx \&ds No Cm key val
.Pp
The
.Cm key
and
.Cm val
strings are space-separated.
The
.Cm key
values may be invoked in subsequent text by using \e*(NN for two-letter
pairs, \e*N for one-letter, and \e*[NNN] for arbitrary-length values.
.Ss \&de1
The syntax of this macro is the same as that of
.Sx \&ig ,
except that a leading argument must be specified.
It is ignored, as are its children.
.Ss \&el
The
.Qq else
half of an if/else conditional.
Pops a result off the stack of conditional evaluations pushed by
.Sx \&ie
and uses it as its conditional.
If no stack entries are present (e.g., due to no prior
.Sx \&ie
calls)
then false is assumed.
The syntax of this macro is similar to
.Sx \&if
except that the conditional is missing.
.Ss \&ie
The
.Qq if
half of an if/else conditional.
The result of the conditional is pushed into a stack used by subsequent
invocations of
.Sx \&el ,
which may be separated by any intervening input (or not exist at all).
Its syntax is equivalent to
.Sx \&if .
.Ss \&if
Begins a conditional.
Right now, the conditional evaluates to true
if and only if it starts with the letter
.Sy n ,
indicating processing in
.Xr nroff 1
style as opposed to
.Xr troff 1
style.
If a conditional is false, its children are not processed, but are
syntactically interpreted to preserve the integrity of the input
document.
Thus,
.Pp
.D1 \&.if t \e .ig
.Pp
will discard the
.Sq \&.ig ,
which may lead to interesting results, but
.Pp
.D1 \&.if t \e .if t \e{\e
.Pp
will continue to syntactically interpret to the block close of the final
conditional.
Sub-conditionals, in this case, obviously inherit the truth value of
the parent.
This macro has the following syntax:
.Pp
.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact
\&.if COND \e{\e
BODY...
\&.\e}
.Ed
.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact
\&.if COND \e{ BODY
BODY... \e}
.Ed
.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact
\&.if COND \e{ BODY
BODY...
\&.\e}
.Ed
.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact
\&.if COND \e
BODY
.Ed
.Pp
COND is a conditional statement.
roff allows for complicated conditionals; mandoc is much simpler.
At this time, mandoc supports only
.Sq n ,
evaluating to true;
and
.Sq t ,
.Sq e ,
and
.Sq o ,
evaluating to false.
All other invocations are read up to the next end of line or space and
evaluate as false.
.Pp
If the BODY section is begun by an escaped brace
.Sq \e{ ,
scope continues until a closing-brace macro
.Sq \.\e} .
If the BODY is not enclosed in braces, scope continues until the next
macro or word.
If the COND is followed by a BODY on the same line, whether after a
brace or not, then macros
.Em must
begin with a control character.
It is generally more intuitive, in this case, to write
.Bd -literal -offset indent
\&.if COND \e{\e
\&.foo
bar
\&.\e}
.Ed
.Pp
than having the macro follow as
.Pp
.D1 \&.if COND \e{ .foo
.Pp
The scope of a conditional is always parsed, but only executed if the
conditional evaluates to true.
.Pp
Note that text subsequent a
.Sq \&.\e}
macro is discarded.
Furthermore, if an explicit closing sequence
.Sq \e}
is specified in a free-form line, the entire line is accepted within the
scope of the prior macro, not only the text preceding the close, with the
.Sq \e}
collapsing into a zero-width space.
.Ss \&ig
Ignore input.
Accepts the following syntax:
.Pp
.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact
\&.ig
BODY...
\&..
.Ed
.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact
\&.ig END
BODY...
\&.END
.Ed
.Pp
In the first case, input is ignored until a
.Sq \&..
macro is encountered on its own line.
In the second case, input is ignored until a
.Sq \&.END
is encountered.
Text subsequent the
.Sq \&.END
or
.Sq \&..
is discarded.
.Pp
Do not use the escape
.Sq \e
anywhere in the definition of END.
It causes very strange behaviour.
Furthermore, if you redefine a
.Nm
macro, such as
.Pp
.D1 \&.ig if
.Pp
the subsequent invocation of
.Sx \&if
will first signify the end of comment, then be invoked as a macro.
This behaviour really shouldn't be counted upon.
.Ss \&rm
Remove a request, macro or string.
This macro is intended to have one argument,
the name of the request, macro or string to be undefined.
Currently, it is ignored including its arguments,
and the number of arguments is not checked.
.Ss \&nr
Define a register.
A register is an arbitrary string value that defines some sort of state,
which influences parsing and/or formatting.
Its syntax is as follows:
.Pp
.D1 Pf \. Sx \&nr Cm name value
.Pp
The
.Cm value
may, at the moment, only be an integer.
The
.Cm name
is defined up to the next whitespace.
The following register
.Cm name
requests are recognised:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Cm nS
If set to a positive integer value, certain
.Xr mdoc 7
macros will behave as if they were defined in the
.Em SYNOPSIS
section.
Otherwise, this behaviour is unset (even if called within the
.Em SYNOPSIS
section itself).
Note that invoking a new
.Xr mdoc 7
section will unset this value.
.El
.Ss \&tr
Output character translation.
This macro is intended to have one argument,
consisting of an even number of characters.
Currently, it is ignored including its arguments,
and the number of arguments is not checked.
.Sh COMPATIBILITY
This section documents compatibility between mandoc and other other
troff implementations, at this time limited to GNU troff
.Pq Qq groff .
The term
.Qq historic groff
refers to groff versions before the
.Pa doc.tmac
file re-write
.Pq somewhere between 1.15 and 1.19 .
.Pp
.Bl -dash -compact
.It
The
.Cm nS
request to
.Sx \&nr
is only compatible with OpenBSD's groff.
.It
Historic groff did not accept white-space buffering the custom END tag
for the
.Sx \&ig
macro.
.It
The
.Sx \&if
and family would print funny white-spaces with historic groff when
depending on next-line syntax.
.El
.Sh AUTHORS
The
.Nm
reference was written by
.An Kristaps Dzonsons Aq kristaps@bsd.lv .