TODO

   1 ************************************************************************
   2 * Official mandoc TODO.
   3 * $Id: TODO,v 1.120 2011/07/28 14:37:39 kristaps Exp $
   4 ************************************************************************
   5
   6 ************************************************************************
   7 * parser bugs
   8 ************************************************************************
   9
  10 - ".\}" on its own line gets translated to bare ".\&"
  11   which forces pset() into man(7)
  12   and then triggers an unknown macro error
  13   reported by naddy@  Sun, 3 Jul 2011 21:52:24 +0200
  14
  15 - .TP before .SH is still FATAL in man(7)
  16   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:54:54 -0500
  17
  18 ************************************************************************
  19 * formatter bugs
  20 ************************************************************************
  21
  22 - tbl(7): Horizontal and vertical lines are formatted badly:
  23   With the box option, there is too much white space at the end of cells.
  24   Horizontal lines from "=" lines are a bit too long.
  25   yuri dot pankov at gmail dot com  Thu, 14 Apr 2011 05:45:26 +0400
  26
  27 ************************************************************************
  28 * missing features
  29 ************************************************************************
  30
  31 --- missing roff features ----------------------------------------------
  32
  33 - .if n \{
  34   .br\}
  35   should cause an extra space to be raised.
  36
  37 - .ad (adjust margins)
  38   .ad l -- adjust left margin only (flush left)
  39   .ad r -- adjust right margin only (flush right)
  40   .ad c -- center text on line
  41   .ad b -- adjust both margins (alias: .ad n)
  42   .na   -- temporarily disable adjustment without changing the mode
  43   .ad   -- re-enable adjustment without changing the mode
  44   Adjustment mode is ignored while in no-fill mode (.nf).
  45
  46 - .it (line traps) occur in mysql(1), yasm_arch(7)
  47   generated by DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.71.1 <http://docbook.sf.net/>
  48   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:48:18 -0500
  49
  50 - .ns (no-space mode) occurs in xine-config(1)
  51   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
  52
  53 - xloadimage(1) wants .ti (temporary indent), rep by naddy@
  54
  55 - .ta (tab settings) occurs in ircbug(1) and probably gnats(1)
  56   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:50:51 -0500
  57
  58 - \c (interrupted text) occurs in chat(8)
  59
  60 --- missing mdoc features ----------------------------------------------
  61
  62 - fix bad block nesting involving multiple identical explicit blocks
  63   see the OpenBSD mdoc_macro.c 1.47 commit message
  64
  65 - .Bl -column .Xo support is missing
  66   ultimate goal:
  67   restore .Xr and .Dv to
  68   lib/libc/compat-43/sigvec.3
  69   lib/libc/gen/signal.3
  70   lib/libc/sys/sigaction.2
  71
  72 - edge case: decide how to deal with blk_full bad nesting, e.g.
  73   .Sh .Nm .Bk .Nm .Ek .Sh found by jmc@ in ssh-keygen(1)
  74   from jmc@  Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:10:32 +0100
  75
  76 - \\ is now implemented correctly
  77   * when defining strings and macros using .ds and .de
  78   * when parsing roff(7) and man(7) macro arguments
  79   It does not yet work in mdoc(7) macro arguments
  80   because libmdoc does not yet use mandoc_getarg().
  81   Also check what happens in plain text, it must be identical to \e.
  82
  83 - .Bd -filled should not be the same as .Bd -ragged, but align both
  84   the left and right margin.  In groff, it is implemented in terms
  85   of .ad b, which we don't have either.  Found in cksum(1).
  86
  87 - implement blank `Bl -column', such as
  88   .Bl -column
  89   .It foo Ta bar
  90   .El
  91
  92 - explicitly disallow nested `Bl -column', which would clobber internal
  93   flags defined for struct mdoc_macro
  94
  95 - In .Bl -column .It, the end of the line probably has to be regarded
  96   as an implicit .Ta, if there could be one, see the following mildly
  97   ugly code from login.conf(5):
  98     .Bl -column minpasswordlen program xetcxmotd
  99     .It path Ta path Ta value of Dv _PATH_DEFPATH
 100     .br
 101     Default search path.
 102   reported by Michal Mazurek <akfaew at jasminek dot net>
 103   via jmc@ Thu, 7 Apr 2011 16:00:53 +0059
 104
 105 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, punctuation is handled like normal
 106   text, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Fl x . Ta ...' should give "-x -."
 107
 108 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, TERMP_IGNDELIM handling by `Pf'
 109   is not safe, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Pf a b .' gives "ab."
 110   but should give "ab ."
 111
 112 - set a meaningful default if no `Bl' list type is assigned
 113
 114 - have a blank `It' head for `Bl -tag' not puke
 115
 116 - prohibit `Nm' from having non-text HEAD children
 117   (e.g., NetBSD mDNSShared/dns-sd.1)
 118   (mdoc_html.c and mdoc_term.c `Nm' handlers can be slightly simplified)
 119
 120 - When there is free text in the SYNOPSIS and that free text contains
 121   the .Nm macro, groff somehow understands to treat the .Nm as an in-line
 122   macro, while mandoc treats it as a block macro and breaks the line.
 123   No idea how the logic for distinguishing in-line and block instances
 124   should be, needs investigation.
 125   uqs@  Thu, 2 Jun 2011 11:03:51 +0200
 126   uqs@  Thu, 2 Jun 2011 11:33:35 +0200
 127
 128 --- missing man features -----------------------------------------------
 129
 130 - groff an-ext.tmac macros (.UR, .UE) occur in xine(5)
 131   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
 132
 133 - -T[x]html doesn't stipulate non-collapsing spaces in literal mode
 134
 135 --- missing tbl features -----------------------------------------------
 136
 137 - implement basic non-parametric .de to support e.g. sox(1)
 138   reported by naddy@ Sat, 16 Oct 2010 23:51:57 +0200
 139   *** sox(1) still doesn't work, tbl(1) errors need investigation
 140
 141 - allow standalone `.' to be interpreted as an end-of-layout
 142   delimiter instead of being thrown away as a no-op roff line
 143   reported by Yuri Pankov, Wed 18 May 2011 11:34:59 CEST
 144
 145 --- missing misc features ----------------------------------------------
 146
 147 - clean up escape sequence handling, creating three classes:
 148   (1) fully implemented, or parsed and ignored without loss of content
 149   (2) unimplemented, potentially causing loss of content
 150       or serious mangling of formatting (e.g. \n) -> ERROR
 151       see textproc/mgdiff(1) for nice examples
 152   (3) undefined, just output the character -> perhaps WARNING
 153
 154 - The \t escape sequence is the same as a literal tab, see for example
 155   the ASCII table in hexdump(1) where
 156     .Bl -column \&000_nu \&001_so \&002_st \&003_et \&004_eo
 157     .It \&000\ nul\t001\ soh\t002\ stx\t003\ etx\t004\ eot\t005\ enq
 158   produces
 159     000 nul  001 soh  002 stx  003 etx  004 eot  005 enq
 160   and the example in oldrdist(1)
 161
 162 - look at pages generated from reStructeredText, e.g. devel/mercurial hg(1)
 163   These are a weird mixture of man(7) and custom autogenerated low-level
 164   roff stuff.  Figure out to what extent we can cope.
 165   For details, see http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
 166   noted by stsp@  Sat, 24 Apr 2010 09:17:55 +0200
 167   reminded by nicm@  Mon, 3 May 2010 09:52:41 +0100
 168
 169 - check compatibility with Plan9:
 170   http://swtch.com/usr/local/plan9/tmac/tmac.an
 171   http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/man7/man.html
 172   "Anthony J. Bentley" <anthonyjbentley@gmail.com> 28 Dec 2010 21:58:40 -0700
 173
 174 ************************************************************************
 175 * formatting issues: ugly output
 176 ************************************************************************
 177
 178 - a column list with blank `Ta' cells triggers a spurrious
 179   start-with-whitespace printing of a newline
 180
 181 - double quotes inside double quotes are escaped by doubling them
 182   implement this in mdoc(7), too
 183   so far, we only have it in roff(7) and man(7)
 184   reminded by millert@  Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:29:52 -0500
 185
 186 - perl(1) SYNOPSIS looks bad; reported by deraadt@
 187   1) man(7) seems to need SYNOPSIS .Nm blocks, too
 188
 189 - In .Bl -column,
 190   .It Em Authentication<tab>Key Length
 191   ought to render "Key Length" with emphasis, too,
 192   see OpenBSD iked.conf(5).
 193
 194 - empty phrases in .Bl column produce too few blanks
 195   try e.g. .Bl -column It Ta Ta
 196   reported by millert Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:13:46 -0400
 197
 198 - .%T can have trailing punctuation.  Currently, it puts the trailing
 199   punctuation into a trailing MDOC_TEXT element inside its own scope.
 200   That element should rather be outside its scope, such that the
 201   punctuation does not get underlines.  This is not trivial to
 202   implement because .%T then needs some features of in_line_eoln() -
 203   slurp all arguments into one single text element - and one feature
 204   of in_line() - put trailing punctuation out of scope.
 205   Found in mount_nfs(8) and exports(5), search for "Appendix".
 206
 207 - in enclosures, mandoc sometimes fancies a bogus end of sentence
 208   reminded by jmc@  Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:13:39 +0059
 209
 210 ************************************************************************
 211 * formatting issues: gratuitous differences
 212 ************************************************************************
 213
 214 - .Rv (and probably .Ex) print different text if an `Nm' has been named
 215   or not (run a manual without `Nm blah' to see this).  I'm not sure
 216   that this exists in the wild, but it's still an error.
 217
 218 - In .Bl -bullet, the groff bullet is "+\b+\bo\bo", the mandoc bullet
 219   is just "o\bo".
 220   see for example OpenBSD ksh(1)
 221
 222 - The characters "|" and "\*(Ba" should never be bold,
 223   not even in the middle of a word, e.g. ".Cm b\*(Bac" in
 224   "mknod [-m mode] name b|c major minor"
 225   in OpenBSD ksh(1)
 226
 227 - A bogus .Pp between two .It must not produce a double blank line,
 228   see between -R and -r in OpenBSD rm(1), before "update" in mount(8),
 229   or in DIAGNOSTICS in init(8), or before "is always true" in ksh(1).
 230   The same happens with .Pp just before .El, see bgpd.conf(5).
 231   Also have `It' complain if `Pp' is invoked at certain times (not
 232   -compact?).
 233
 234 - .Pp between two .It in .Bl -column should produce one,
 235   not two blank lines, see e.g. login.conf(5).
 236   reported by jmc@  Sun, 17 Apr 2011 14:04:58 +0059
 237
 238 - If the *first* line after .It is .Pp, break the line right after
 239   the tag, do not pad with space characters before breaking.
 240   See the description of the a, c, and i commands in sed(1).
 241
 242 - If the first line after .It is .D1, do not assert a blank line
 243   in between, see for example tmux(1).
 244   reported by nicm@  13 Jan 2011 00:18:57 +0000
 245
 246 - .Nx 1.0a
 247   should be "NetBSD 1.0A", not "NetBSD 1.0a",
 248   see OpenBSD ccdconfig(8).
 249
 250 - In .Bl -tag, if a tag exceeds the right margin and must be continued
 251   on the next line, it must be indented by -width, not width+1;
 252   see "rule block|pass" in OpenBSD ifconfig(8).
 253
 254 - When the -width string contains macros, the macros must be rendered
 255   before measuring the width, for example
 256     .Bl -tag -width ".Dv message"
 257   in magic(5), located in src/usr.bin/file, is the same
 258   as -width 7n, not -width 11n.
 259
 260 - The \& zero-width character counts as output.
 261   That is, when it is alone on a line between two .Pp,
 262   we want three blank lines, not two as in mandoc.
 263
 264 - When .Fn arguments exceed one output line, all but the first
 265   should be indented, see e.g. rpc(3);
 266   reported by jmc@ on discuss@  Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:48:33 +0100
 267
 268 - .Ns should work when called at the end of an input line, see
 269   the following code in vi(1):
 270     .It Xo
 271     .Op Ar line
 272     .Cm a Ns Op Cm ppend Ns
 273     .Op Cm !\&
 274     .Xc
 275     The input text is appended after the specified line.
 276
 277 - Header lines of excessive length:
 278   Port OpenBSD man_term.c rev. 1.25 to mdoc_term.c
 279   and document it in mdoc(7) and man(7) COMPATIBILITY
 280   found while talking to Chris Bennett
 281
 282 - In man(7), the sequence
 283     .HP
 284     one line of regular text
 285     .SH
 286   should not produce two blank lines before the .SH,
 287   see for example named-checkconf(8).
 288
 289 - In man(7), the sequence
 290     .SH HEADER
 291     <blank line>
 292     .PP
 293     regular text
 294   should not produce any blank lines between the header and the text,
 295   see for example rsync(1).
 296   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 297
 298 - In man(7), the sequence
 299     regular text
 300     .IP
 301     .IP "tag"
 302     indented text
 303   should produce one, not four blank lines between the regular text
 304   and the tag, see for example rsync(1).
 305   Likewise,
 306     regular text
 307     .IP
 308     indented text
 309   should produce one, not two blank lines in between, and
 310     regular text
 311     .IP
 312     .RS
 313     .IP tag
 314     indented text
 315   should produce one, not three blank lines.
 316   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 317
 318 - trailing whitespace must be ignored even when followed by a font escape,
 319   see for example
 320     makes
 321     \fBdig \fR
 322     operate in batch mode
 323   in dig(1).
 324
 325 ************************************************************************
 326 * error reporting issues
 327 ************************************************************************
 328
 329 ************************************************************************
 330 * performance issues
 331 ************************************************************************
 332
 333 Several areas can be cleaned up to make mandoc even faster.  These are
 334
 335 - improve hashing mechanism for macros (quite important: performance)
 336
 337 - improve hashing mechanism for characters (not as important)
 338
 339 - the PDF file is HUGE: this can be reduced by using relative offsets
 340
 341 - instead of re-initialising the roff predefined-strings set before each
 342   parse, create a read-only version the first time and copy it
 343
 344 ************************************************************************
 345 * structural issues
 346 ************************************************************************
 347
 348 - Find better ways to prevent endless loops
 349   in roff(7) macro and string expansion.
 350
 351 - Finish cleanup of date handling.
 352   Decide which formats should be recognized where.
 353   Update both mdoc(7) and man(7) documentation.
 354   Triggered by  Tim van der Molen  Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:30:45 +0100