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16 <B>mdocml</B> – mdoc macro compiler
27 <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> is a suite of tools compiling <Q>-mdoc</Q>, the roff macro package
28 of choice for BSD manual pages, and <Q>-man</Q>, the predominant historical package for UNIX
29 manuals. The mission of <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> is to deprecate <A
30 HREF="http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/" CLASS="external">groff</A>, the GNU roff implementation, for
31 displaying -mdoc pages whilst providing token support for -man.
35 Why? groff amounts to over 5 MB of source code, most of which is C++ and all of which is GPL. It runs
36 slowly, produces uncertain output, and varies in operation from system to system. mdocml strives to fix
37 this (respectively small, C, ISC-licensed, fast and regular).
41 The core of <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> is composed of the <i>libmdoc</i> and <i>libman</i>
42 validating compiler libraries. Both are simple, fast libraries operating on memory buffers, so they may
43 be used for a variety of front-ends (terminal-based, CGI and so on). The primary front-end is <i>
44 mandoc</i>, which formats manuals for display on the terminal.
48 The <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> utility is a <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://bsd.lv/">BSD.lv
60 Sources correctly build and install on DragonFly BSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and GNU/Linux operating
61 systems, tested variously on i386, AMD64, alpha, and others. The most current version is <SPAN
62 CLASS="attn">@VERSION@</SPAN>, dated <SPAN class="attn">@VDATE@</SPAN>. A full <A
63 HREF="ChangeLog.html">ChangeLog</A> (<A HREF="ChangeLog.txt">txt</A>) is written with each release.
70 <TABLE WIDTH="100%" SUMMARY="Current Sources">
75 <TD>Source archive</TD>
77 <A HREF="/snapshots/mdocml.tar.gz">/snapshots/mdocml.tar.gz</A>
78 (<A HREF="/snapshots/mdocml.md5">md5</A>)
82 <TD>Online source</TD>
84 <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://mdocml.bsd.lv/cgi-bin/cvsweb/?cvsroot=mdocml">cvsweb</A>
94 <TABLE WIDTH="100%" SUMMARY="Downstream Sources">
99 <TD>DragonFly BSD</TD>
101 <A HREF="http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/tree/HEAD:/usr.bin/mandoc"
102 CLASS="external">usr.bin/mandoc</A>
108 <A HREF="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/textproc/mdocml/"
109 CLASS="external">ports/textproc/mdocml</A>
115 <A HREF="http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/external/bsd/mdocml/"
116 CLASS="external">src/external/bsd/mdocml</A>
122 <A HREF="http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/mandoc/"
123 CLASS="external">src/usr.bin/mandoc</A>
133 <TABLE WIDTH="100%" SUMMARY="Archived Sources">
138 <TD>Source archive</TD>
140 <A HREF="/snapshots/">/snapshots/</A>
154 These manuals are generated automatically and refer to the current snapshot.
157 <TABLE WIDTH="100%" SUMMARY="Documentation">
162 <TD><A HREF="mandoc.1.html">mandoc(1)</A> (<A HREF="mandoc.1.txt">text</A>)</TD>
163 <TD>format and display UNIX manuals</TD>
166 <TD><A HREF="mandoc_char.7.html">mandoc_char(7)</A> (<A HREF="mandoc_char.7.txt">text</A>)</TD>
167 <TD>mandoc special characters</TD>
170 <TD><A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc(7)</A> (<A HREF="mdoc.7.txt">text</A>)</TD>
171 <TD>mdoc language reference</TD>
174 <TD><A HREF="man.7.html">man(7)</A> (<A HREF="man.7.txt">text</A>)</TD>
175 <TD>man language reference</TD>
178 <TD><A HREF="manuals.7.html">manuals(7)</A> (<A HREF="manuals.7.txt">text</A>)</TD>
179 <TD>a guide to writing UNIX manuals</TD>
182 <TD><A HREF="mdoc.3.html">mdoc(3)</A> (<A HREF="mdoc.3.txt">text</A>)</TD>
183 <TD>mdoc macro compiler library</TD>
186 <TD><A HREF="man.3.html">man(3)</A> (<A HREF="man.3.txt">text</A>)</TD>
187 <TD>man macro compiler library</TD>
190 <TD><A HREF="roff.7.html">roff(7)</A> (<A HREF="roff.7.txt">text</A>)</TD>
191 <TD>roff language reference</TD>
204 For all issues related to <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN>, contact Kristaps Dzonsons, kris<A
206 HREF="http://mailhide.recaptcha.net/d?k=01M6h_w7twDp58ZgH57eWC_w==&c=Q2DBUt401ePlSeupJFrq_Q=="
207 TITLE="Reveal this e-mail address">...</A>@bsd.lv.
211 You may also subscribe to several mailing lists (these require subscription, which is moderated). An
212 archive is not yet available.
215 <TABLE WIDTH="100%" SUMMARY="Mailing Lists">
221 disc<A CLASS="external" TITLE="Reveal this e-mail address"
222 HREF="http://www.google.com/recaptcha/mailhide/d?k=01KQ80PFH5n3BBNpF5Gs4sRg==&c=EV1QytpQqTHSItc2IXvZyocgYLPnG5K0JKw_gwMC9yc=">...</a>@mdocml.bsd.lv
224 <TD>discussions and announcements</TD>
228 sou<A CLASS="external" TITLE="Reveal this e-mail address"
229 HREF="http://www.google.com/recaptcha/mailhide/d?k=01prQrAZhhl2EbIwVcRfABsQ==&c=KtTW4Yic9xk-8g40KzJoca4fR3MYXv28g8NC6OQV-T8=">...</a>@mdocml.bsd.lv
231 <TD>source commit messages</TD>
243 <TABLE WIDTH="100%" CELLPADDING="2">
247 <TD VALIGN="top"><SPAN CLASS="date">xx-05-2010</SPAN></TD>
248 Day 1 of Rostock hackathon: proper handling of quotations in tab-separated
249 column lists, finished patching of SYNOPSIS breaking (1.9.25), fixed pre-comment
250 white-space stripping, added end-of-sentence spacing to black partial-implicit
251 macros, relaxed column warnings, relaxed acceptence of bad standards arguments,
252 significant documentation of lists in <A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc(7)</A>.
253 Version: <SPAN CLASS="rev">1.9.26</SPAN>.
257 <TD VALIGN="top"><SPAN CLASS="date">13-05-2010</SPAN></TD>
259 Fixed handling of <Q>\*(Ba</Q> escape. Backed out <SPAN
260 CLASS="flag">-fno-ign-chars</SPAN> (pointless complexity). Fixed erroneous
261 breaking of literal lines. Fixed SYNOPSIS breaking lines before non-initial
262 macros. Changed default section ordering. Most importantly, the framework for
263 end-of-sentence double-spacing is in place, now implemented for the
264 <Q>end-of-sentence, end-of-line</Q> rule. This is a stable roll-back point
265 before the mandoc hackathon in Rostock!
266 Version: <SPAN CLASS="rev">1.9.25</SPAN>.
269 <TD VALIGN="top"><SPAN CLASS="date">09-05-2010</SPAN></TD>
271 Rolled back break-at-hyphen. <SPAN CLASS="flag">-DUGLY</SPAN> is now the
272 default (no feature splits!). Free-form text is not de-chunked any more: lines
273 are passed whole-sale into the front-end, including whitespace. Added mailing
274 lists. Lastly, <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> is the focus of two <A
275 CLASS="external" HREF="http://socghop.appspot.com/">Google Summer of Code</A>
276 projects this year: <Q><A CLASS="external"
277 HREF="http://netbsd-soc.sourceforge.net/projects/mandoc_ps/">mandoc -Tps</A></Q>
278 (NetBSD) and <Q><A CLASS="external"
279 HREF="http://wiki.freebsd.org/SummerOfCode2010Projects">BSD-licensed
280 Text-Processing Tools</A></Q> (FreeBSD).
281 Version: <SPAN CLASS="rev">1.9.24</SPAN>.
286 <TD VALIGN="top"><SPAN CLASS="date">07-04-2010</SPAN></TD>
288 <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> has been linked to the <A CLASS="external"
289 HREF="http://www.openbsd.org/faq/current.html#20100403">OpenBSD build</a>. This
290 version incorporates many small changes, mostly from patches by OpenBSD,
291 allowing crufty manuals to slip by with warnings instead of erroring-out. Some
292 subtle semantic issues, such as punctuation scope, have also been fixed.
293 Lastly, some issues with <SPAN CLASS="flag">-Thtml</SPAN> have been fixed, which
294 prompted an update to the <A HREF="mandoc.1.html">online</A> <A
295 HREF="mandoc_char.7.html">manual</A> <A HREF="man.7.html">pages</A> style
296 layout. Version: <SPAN CLASS="rev">1.9.23</SPAN>.
300 <TD VALIGN="top"><SPAN CLASS="date">31-03-2010</SPAN></TD>
302 Version <SPAN CLASS="rev">1.9.22</SPAN>: adjusted merge of the significant work
303 by Ingo Schwarze in getting <Q>Xo</Q> blocks (block full implicit, e.g.,
304 <Q>It</Q> for non-columnar lists) to work properly. This isn't enabled by
305 default: you must specify <SPAN CLASS="flag">-DUGLY</SPAN> as a compiler flag
306 (see the Makefile for details).
310 <TD VALIGN="top"><SPAN CLASS="date">30-03-2010</SPAN></TD>
312 Version <SPAN CLASS="rev">1.9.20</SPAN>: more efforts to get roff instructions
313 in -man documents under control. Note that roff instructions embedded in
314 line-scoped, next-line macros (e.g. <Q>B</Q>) are not supported. Leading
315 punctuation for -mdoc macros, such as <Q>Fl ( ( a</Q>, are now correctly
320 <TD VALIGN="top"><SPAN CLASS="date">27-03-2010</SPAN></TD>
322 Version <SPAN CLASS="rev">1.9.18</SPAN>: many fixes (largely pertaining to
323 scope) and improvements (e.g., handling of apostrophe-control macros, which
324 fixes the strange <Q>BR</Q> seen in some macro output) to handling roff
325 instructions in -man documents.
329 <TD VALIGN="top"><SPAN CLASS="date">25-03-2010</SPAN></TD>
331 Version <SPAN CLASS="rev">1.9.17</SPAN> highlights: accept <A
332 HREF="http://perldoc.perl.org/" CLASS="external">perlpod</A> standard preamble.
333 Also accept (and discard) <Q>de</Q>, <Q>dei</Q>, <Q>am</Q>, <Q>ami</Q>, and
334 <Q>ig</Q> roff macro blocks.
338 <TD VALIGN="top"><SPAN CLASS="date">22-03-2010</SPAN></TD>
340 Version <SPAN CLASS="rev">1.9.16</SPAN> highlights: inspired by patches and bug
341 reports by Ingo Schwarze, allowed <SPAN CLASS="flag">-man</SPAN> to accept
342 non-printing elements to be nested within next-line scopes, such as <Q>br</Q>
343 within <Q>B</Q> or <Q>TH</Q>, which is valid roff. Longsoon architecture also
344 noted and Makefile cleaned up.
348 <TD VALIGN="top"><SPAN CLASS="date">18-02-2010</SPAN></TD>
350 Moved to our new <A HREF="http://bsd.lv" CLASS="external">BSD.lv</A> home.
351 Version <SPAN CLASS="rev">1.9.15</SPAN> highlights: XHTML is now an acceptable
352 output mode for <A HREF="mandoc.1.html">mandoc(1)</A>; <Q>Xr</Q> made more
353 compatible with groff; <Q>Vt</Q> fixed when invoked in SYNOPSIS; <Q>\\</Q>
354 escape removed; end-of-line white-space detected for all lines; subtle bug
355 fixed in list display for some modes; compatibility layer checked in for
356 compilation in diverse UNIX systems; and column lengths handled correctly.
366 Copyright © 2008–2010 Kristaps Dzonsons, $Date: 2010/05/17 02:38:13 $