TODO

   1 ************************************************************************
   2 * Official mandoc TODO.
   3 * $Id: TODO,v 1.105 2011/05/18 09:45:21 kristaps Exp $
   4 ************************************************************************
   5
   6 ************************************************************************
   7 * parser bugs
   8 ************************************************************************
   9
  10 - .TP before .SH is still FATAL in man(7)
  11   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:54:54 -0500
  12
  13 - the roff parser doesn't tolerate additional characters between
  14   a macro and the \} terminating a conditional block, e.g.
  15   .if n \{
  16   .br \}
  17   reported by ulrich spoerlein  Tue, 19 Oct 2010 20:39:50 +0200
  18
  19 ************************************************************************
  20 * formatter bugs
  21 ************************************************************************
  22
  23 - tbl(7): Horizontal and vertical lines are formatted badly:
  24   With the box option, there is too much white space at the end of cells.
  25   Horizontal lines from "=" lines are a bit too long.
  26   yuri dot pankov at gmail dot com  Thu, 14 Apr 2011 05:45:26 +0400
  27
  28 ************************************************************************
  29 * missing features
  30 ************************************************************************
  31
  32 --- missing roff features ----------------------------------------------
  33
  34 - .ad (adjust margins)
  35   .ad l -- adjust left margin only (flush left)
  36   .ad r -- adjust right margin only (flush right)
  37   .ad c -- center text on line
  38   .ad b -- adjust both margins (alias: .ad n)
  39   .na   -- temporarily disable adjustment without changing the mode
  40   .ad   -- re-enable adjustment without changing the mode
  41   Adjustment mode is ignored while in no-fill mode (.nf).
  42
  43 - .it (line traps) occur in mysql(1), yasm_arch(7)
  44   generated by DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.71.1 <http://docbook.sf.net/>
  45   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:48:18 -0500
  46
  47 - .ns (no-space mode) occurs in xine-config(1)
  48   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
  49
  50 - xloadimage(1) wants .ti (temporary indent), rep by naddy@
  51
  52 - .ta (tab settings) occurs in ircbug(1) and probably gnats(1)
  53   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:50:51 -0500
  54
  55 - pod2man expects `tr' to be implemented for \*(-- to work
  56
  57 - \c (interrupted text) occurs in chat(8)
  58
  59 - \f(CW (constant width font) occurs in rsyncd.conf(5).
  60   I think we should treat unknown/unavailable fonts as \fR
  61   such that switching back with \fP works correctly -
  62   and doesn't revert the _previous_ \fP.
  63
  64 --- missing mdoc features ----------------------------------------------
  65
  66 - fix bad block nesting involving multiple identical explicit blocks
  67   see the OpenBSD mdoc_macro.c 1.47 commit message
  68
  69 - .Bl -column .Xo support is missing
  70   ultimate goal:
  71   restore .Xr and .Dv to
  72   lib/libc/compat-43/sigvec.3
  73   lib/libc/gen/signal.3
  74   lib/libc/sys/sigaction.2
  75
  76 - edge case: decide how to deal with blk_full bad nesting, e.g.
  77   .Sh .Nm .Bk .Nm .Ek .Sh found by jmc@ in ssh-keygen(1)
  78   from jmc@  Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:10:32 +0100
  79
  80 - \\ is now implemented correctly
  81   * when defining strings and macros using .ds and .de
  82   * when parsing roff(7) and man(7) macro arguments
  83   It does not yet work in mdoc(7) macro arguments
  84   because libmdoc does not yet use mandoc_getarg().
  85   Also check what happens in plain text, it must be identical to \e.
  86
  87 - .Bd -filled should not be the same as .Bd -ragged, but align both
  88   the left and right margin.  In groff, it is implemented in terms
  89   of .ad b, which we don't have either.  Found in cksum(1).
  90
  91 - implement blank `Bl -column', such as
  92   .Bl -column
  93   .It foo Ta bar
  94   .El
  95
  96 - explicitly disallow nested `Bl -column', which would clobber internal
  97   flags defined for struct mdoc_macro
  98
  99 - In .Bl -column .It, the end of the line probably has to be regarded
 100   as an implicit .Ta, if there could be one, see the following mildly
 101   ugly code from login.conf(5):
 102     .Bl -column minpasswordlen program xetcxmotd
 103     .It path Ta path Ta value of Dv _PATH_DEFPATH
 104     .br
 105     Default search path.
 106   reported by Michal Mazurek <akfaew at jasminek dot net>
 107   via jmc@ Thu, 7 Apr 2011 16:00:53 +0059
 108
 109 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, punctuation is handled like normal
 110   text, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Fl x . Ta ...' should give "-x -."
 111
 112 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, TERMP_IGNDELIM handling by `Pf'
 113   is not safe, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Pf a b .' gives "ab."
 114   but should give "ab ."
 115
 116 - set a meaningful default if no `Bl' list type is assigned
 117
 118 - have a blank `It' head for `Bl -tag' not puke
 119
 120 - prohibit `Nm' from having non-text HEAD children
 121   (e.g., NetBSD mDNSShared/dns-sd.1)
 122   (mdoc_html.c and mdoc_term.c `Nm' handlers can be slightly simplified)
 123
 124 --- missing man features -----------------------------------------------
 125
 126 - .RS/.RE can be nested, see e.g. the x11/fluxbox manuals
 127   noticed by dcoppa@  Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 04:58:14PM +0200:
 128
 129 - groff an-ext.tmac macros (.UR, .UE) occur in xine(5)
 130   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
 131
 132 --- missing tbl features -----------------------------------------------
 133
 134 - implement basic non-parametric .de to support e.g. sox(1)
 135   reported by naddy@ Sat, 16 Oct 2010 23:51:57 +0200
 136   *** sox(1) still doesn't work, tbl(1) errors need investigation
 137
 138 - allow standalone `.' to be interpreted as an end-of-layout
 139   delimiter instead of being thrown away as a no-op roff line
 140   reported by Yuri Pankov, Wed 18 May 2011 11:34:59 CEST
 141
 142 --- missing misc features ----------------------------------------------
 143
 144 - clean up escape sequence handling, creating three classes:
 145   (1) fully implemented, or parsed and ignored without loss of content
 146   (2) unimplemented, potentially causing loss of content
 147       or serious mangling of formatting (e.g. \n) -> ERROR
 148       see textproc/mgdiff(1) for nice examples
 149   (3) undefined, just output the character -> perhaps WARNING
 150
 151 - The \t escape sequence is the same as a literal tab, see for example
 152   the ASCII table in hexdump(1) where
 153     .Bl -column \&000_nu \&001_so \&002_st \&003_et \&004_eo
 154     .It \&000\ nul\t001\ soh\t002\ stx\t003\ etx\t004\ eot\t005\ enq
 155   produces
 156     000 nul  001 soh  002 stx  003 etx  004 eot  005 enq
 157   and the example in oldrdist(1)
 158
 159 - look at pages generated from reStructeredText, e.g. devel/mercurial hg(1)
 160   These are a weird mixture of man(7) and custom autogenerated low-level
 161   roff stuff.  Figure out to what extent we can cope.
 162   For details, see http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
 163   noted by stsp@  Sat, 24 Apr 2010 09:17:55 +0200
 164   reminded by nicm@  Mon, 3 May 2010 09:52:41 +0100
 165
 166 - check compatibility with Plan9:
 167   http://swtch.com/usr/local/plan9/tmac/tmac.an
 168   http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/man7/man.html
 169   "Anthony J. Bentley" <anthonyjbentley@gmail.com> 28 Dec 2010 21:58:40 -0700
 170
 171 ************************************************************************
 172 * formatting issues: ugly output
 173 ************************************************************************
 174
 175 - a column list with blank `Ta' cells triggers a spurrious
 176   start-with-whitespace printing of a newline
 177
 178 - double quotes inside double quotes are escaped by doubling them
 179   implement this in mdoc(7), too
 180   so far, we only have it in roff(7) and man(7)
 181   reminded by millert@  Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:29:52 -0500
 182
 183 - perl(1) SYNOPSIS looks bad; reported by deraadt@
 184   1) man(7) seems to need SYNOPSIS .Nm blocks, too
 185
 186 - In .Bl -column,
 187   .It Em Authentication<tab>Key Length
 188   ought to render "Key Length" with emphasis, too,
 189   see OpenBSD iked.conf(5).
 190
 191 - empty phrases in .Bl column produce too few blanks
 192   try e.g. .Bl -column It Ta Ta
 193   reported by millert Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:13:46 -0400
 194
 195 - .%T can have trailing punctuation.  Currently, it puts the trailing
 196   punctuation into a trailing MDOC_TEXT element inside its own scope.
 197   That element should rather be outside its scope, such that the
 198   punctuation does not get underlines.  This is not trivial to
 199   implement because .%T then needs some features of in_line_eoln() -
 200   slurp all arguments into one single text element - and one feature
 201   of in_line() - put trailing punctuation out of scope.
 202   Found in mount_nfs(8) and exports(5), search for "Appendix".
 203
 204 - in enclosures, mandoc sometimes fancies a bogus end of sentence
 205   reminded by jmc@  Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:13:39 +0059
 206
 207 ************************************************************************
 208 * formatting issues: gratuitous differences
 209 ************************************************************************
 210
 211 - .Rv (and probably .Ex) print different text if an `Nm' has been named
 212   or not (run a manual without `Nm blah' to see this).  I'm not sure
 213   that this exists in the wild, but it's still an error.
 214
 215 - In .Bl -bullet, the groff bullet is "+\b+\bo\bo", the mandoc bullet
 216   is just "o\bo".
 217   see for example OpenBSD ksh(1)
 218
 219 - The characters "|" and "\*(Ba" should never be bold,
 220   not even in the middle of a word, e.g. ".Cm b\*(Bac" in
 221   "mknod [-m mode] name b|c major minor"
 222   in OpenBSD ksh(1)
 223
 224 - A bogus .Pp between two .It must not produce a double blank line,
 225   see between -R and -r in OpenBSD rm(1), before "update" in mount(8),
 226   or in DIAGNOSTICS in init(8), or before "is always true" in ksh(1).
 227   The same happens with .Pp just before .El, see bgpd.conf(5).
 228   Also have `It' complain if `Pp' is invoked at certain times (not
 229   -compact?).
 230
 231 - .Pp between two .It in .Bl -column should produce one,
 232   not two blank lines, see e.g. login.conf(5).
 233   reported by jmc@  Sun, 17 Apr 2011 14:04:58 +0059
 234
 235 - If the *first* line after .It is .Pp, break the line right after
 236   the tag, do not pad with space characters before breaking.
 237   See the description of the a, c, and i commands in sed(1).
 238
 239 - If the first line after .It is .D1, do not assert a blank line
 240   in between, see for example tmux(1).
 241   reported by nicm@  13 Jan 2011 00:18:57 +0000
 242
 243 - .Nx 1.0a
 244   should be "NetBSD 1.0A", not "NetBSD 1.0a",
 245   see OpenBSD ccdconfig(8).
 246
 247 - In .Bl -tag, if a tag exceeds the right margin and must be continued
 248   on the next line, it must be indented by -width, not width+1;
 249   see "rule block|pass" in OpenBSD ifconfig(8).
 250
 251 - When the -width string contains macros, the macros must be rendered
 252   before measuring the width, for example
 253     .Bl -tag -width ".Dv message"
 254   in magic(5), located in src/usr.bin/file, is the same
 255   as -width 7n, not -width 11n.
 256
 257 - The \& zero-width character counts as output.
 258   That is, when it is alone on a line between two .Pp,
 259   we want three blank lines, not two as in mandoc.
 260
 261 - When .Fn arguments exceed one output line, all but the first
 262   should be indented, see e.g. rpc(3);
 263   reported by jmc@ on discuss@  Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:48:33 +0100
 264
 265 - .Ns should work when called at the end of an input line, see
 266   the following code in vi(1):
 267     .It Xo
 268     .Op Ar line
 269     .Cm a Ns Op Cm ppend Ns
 270     .Op Cm !\&
 271     .Xc
 272     The input text is appended after the specified line.
 273
 274 - Header lines of excessive length:
 275   Port OpenBSD man_term.c rev. 1.25 to mdoc_term.c
 276   and document it in mdoc(7) and man(7) COMPATIBILITY
 277   found while talking to Chris Bennett
 278
 279 - In man(7), the sequence
 280     .HP
 281     one line of regular text
 282     .SH
 283   should not produce two blank lines before the .SH,
 284   see for example named-checkconf(8).
 285
 286 - In man(7), the sequence
 287     regular text
 288     .RS
 289     .IP
 290   should have a blank line between the text and the beginning of the
 291   indented paragraph, see for example sudo(1).
 292
 293 - In man(7), the sequence
 294     .SH HEADER
 295     <blank line>
 296     .PP
 297     regular text
 298   should not produce any blank lines between the header and the text,
 299   see for example rsync(1).
 300   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 301
 302 - In man(7), the sequence
 303     regular text
 304     .PP
 305     .RS
 306     indented text
 307   should produce one blank line between the regular and indented texts,
 308   see for example rsync(1), and
 309     .RE
 310     <blank line>
 311     .PP
 312     .RS
 313   should produce two,not one blank lines.
 314   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 315
 316 - In man(7), the sequence
 317     regular text
 318     .IP
 319     .IP "tag"
 320     indented text
 321   should produce one, not four blank lines between the regular text
 322   and the tag, see for example rsync(1).
 323   Likewise,
 324     regular text
 325     .IP
 326     indented text
 327   should produce one, not two blank lines in between, and
 328     regular text
 329     .IP
 330     .RS
 331     .IP tag
 332     indented text
 333   should produce one, not three blank lines.
 334   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 335
 336 - At least sometimes, .sp is ignored right after .SH; see named.conf(5).
 337
 338 - trailing whitespace must be ignored even when followed by a font escape,
 339   see for example
 340     makes
 341     \fBdig \fR
 342     operate in batch mode
 343   in dig(1).
 344
 345 ************************************************************************
 346 * error reporting issues
 347 ************************************************************************
 348
 349 ************************************************************************
 350 * performance issues
 351 ************************************************************************
 352
 353 Several areas can be cleaned up to make mandoc even faster.  These are
 354
 355 - improve hashing mechanism for macros (quite important: performance)
 356
 357 - improve hashing mechanism for characters (not as important)
 358
 359 - the PDF file is HUGE: this can be reduced by using relative offsets
 360
 361 ************************************************************************
 362 * structural issues
 363 ************************************************************************
 364
 365 - Find better ways to prevent endless loops
 366   in roff(7) macro and string expansion.
 367
 368 - Finish cleanup of date handling.
 369   Decide which formats should be recognized where.
 370   Update both mdoc(7) and man(7) documentation.
 371   Triggered by  Tim van der Molen  Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:30:45 +0100