TODO

   1 ************************************************************************
   2 * Official mandoc TODO.
   3 * $Id: TODO,v 1.97 2011/03/29 09:00:48 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 ************************************************************************
  24 * missing features
  25 ************************************************************************
  26
  27 --- missing roff features ----------------------------------------------
  28
  29 - .ad (adjust margins)
  30   .ad l -- adjust left margin only (flush left)
  31   .ad r -- adjust right margin only (flush right)
  32   .ad c -- center text on line
  33   .ad b -- adjust both margins (alias: .ad n)
  34   .na   -- temporarily disable adjustment without changing the mode
  35   .ad   -- re-enable adjustment without changing the mode
  36   Adjustment mode is ignored while in no-fill mode (.nf).
  37
  38 - .it (line traps) occur in mysql(1), yasm_arch(7)
  39   generated by DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.71.1 <http://docbook.sf.net/>
  40   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:48:18 -0500
  41
  42 - .ns (no-space mode) occurs in xine-config(1)
  43   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
  44
  45 - xloadimage(1) wants .ti (temporary indent), rep by naddy@
  46
  47 - .ta (tab settings) occurs in ircbug(1) and probably gnats(1)
  48   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:50:51 -0500
  49
  50 - pod2man expects `tr' to be implemented for \*(-- to work
  51
  52 - \c (interrupted text) occurs in chat(8)
  53
  54 --- missing mdoc features ----------------------------------------------
  55
  56 - fix bad block nesting involving multiple identical explicit blocks
  57   see the OpenBSD mdoc_macro.c 1.47 commit message
  58
  59 - .Bl -column .Xo support is missing
  60   ultimate goal:
  61   restore .Xr and .Dv to
  62   lib/libc/compat-43/sigvec.3
  63   lib/libc/gen/signal.3
  64   lib/libc/sys/sigaction.2
  65
  66 - edge case: decide how to deal with blk_full bad nesting, e.g.
  67   .Sh .Nm .Bk .Nm .Ek .Sh found by jmc@ in ssh-keygen(1)
  68   from jmc@  Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:10:32 +0100
  69
  70 - \\ is now implemented correctly
  71   * when defining strings and macros using .ds and .de
  72   * when parsing roff(7) and man(7) macro arguments
  73   It does not yet work in mdoc(7) macro arguments
  74   because libmdoc does not yet use mandoc_getarg().
  75   Also check what happens in plain text, it must be identical to \e.
  76
  77 - .Bd -filled should not be the same as .Bd -ragged, but align both
  78   the left and right margin.  In groff, it is implemented in terms
  79   of .ad b, which we don't have either.  Found in cksum(1).
  80
  81 - implement blank `Bl -column', such as
  82   .Bl -column
  83   .It foo Ta bar
  84   .El
  85
  86 - explicitly disallow nested `Bl -column', which would clobber internal
  87   flags defined for struct mdoc_macro
  88
  89 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, punctuation is handled like normal
  90   text, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Fl x . Ta ...' should give "-x -."
  91
  92 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, TERMP_IGNDELIM handling by `Pf'
  93   is not safe, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Pf a b .' gives "ab."
  94   but should give "ab ."
  95
  96 - set a meaningful default if no `Bl' list type is assigned
  97
  98 - have a blank `It' head for `Bl -tag' not puke
  99
 100 - prohibit `Nm' from having non-text HEAD children
 101   (e.g., NetBSD mDNSShared/dns-sd.1)
 102   (mdoc_html.c and mdoc_term.c `Nm' handlers can be slightly simplified)
 103
 104 --- missing man features -----------------------------------------------
 105
 106 - groff an-ext.tmac macros (.UR, .UE) occur in xine(5)
 107   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
 108
 109 --- missing tbl features -----------------------------------------------
 110
 111 - implement basic non-parametric .de to support e.g. sox(1)
 112   reported by naddy@ Sat, 16 Oct 2010 23:51:57 +0200
 113   *** sox(1) still doesn't work, tbl(1) errors need investigation
 114
 115 --- missing misc features ----------------------------------------------
 116
 117 - clean up escape sequence handling, creating three classes:
 118   (1) fully implemented, or parsed and ignored without loss of content
 119   (2) unimplemented, potentially causing loss of content
 120       or serious mangling of formatting (e.g. \n) -> ERROR
 121       see textproc/mgdiff(1) for nice examples
 122   (3) undefined, just output the character -> perhaps WARNING
 123
 124 - The \t escape sequence is the same as a literal tab, see for example
 125   the ASCII table in hexdump(1) where
 126     .Bl -column \&000_nu \&001_so \&002_st \&003_et \&004_eo
 127     .It \&000\ nul\t001\ soh\t002\ stx\t003\ etx\t004\ eot\t005\ enq
 128   produces
 129     000 nul  001 soh  002 stx  003 etx  004 eot  005 enq
 130   and the example in oldrdist(1)
 131
 132 - look at pages generated from reStructeredText, e.g. devel/mercurial hg(1)
 133   These are a weird mixture of man(7) and custom autogenerated low-level
 134   roff stuff.  Figure out to what extent we can cope.
 135   For details, see http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
 136   noted by stsp@  Sat, 24 Apr 2010 09:17:55 +0200
 137   reminded by nicm@  Mon, 3 May 2010 09:52:41 +0100
 138
 139 - check compatibility with Plan9:
 140   http://swtch.com/usr/local/plan9/tmac/tmac.an
 141   http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/man7/man.html
 142   "Anthony J. Bentley" <anthonyjbentley@gmail.com> 28 Dec 2010 21:58:40 -0700
 143
 144 ************************************************************************
 145 * formatting issues: ugly output
 146 ************************************************************************
 147
 148 - a column list with blank `Ta' cells triggers a spurrious
 149   start-with-whitespace printing of a newline
 150
 151 - double quotes inside double quotes are escaped by doubling them
 152   implement this in mdoc(7), too
 153   so far, we only have it in roff(7) and man(7)
 154   reminded by millert@  Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:29:52 -0500
 155
 156 - perl(1) SYNOPSIS looks bad; reported by deraadt@
 157   1) man(7) seems to need SYNOPSIS .Nm blocks, too
 158
 159 - In .Bl -column,
 160   .It Em Authentication<tab>Key Length
 161   ought to render "Key Length" with emphasis, too,
 162   see OpenBSD iked.conf(5).
 163
 164 - empty phrases in .Bl column produce too few blanks
 165   try e.g. .Bl -column It Ta Ta
 166   reported by millert Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:13:46 -0400
 167
 168 - .%T can have trailing punctuation.  Currently, it puts the trailing
 169   punctuation into a trailing MDOC_TEXT element inside its own scope.
 170   That element should rather be outside its scope, such that the
 171   punctuation does not get underlines.  This is not trivial to
 172   implement because .%T then needs some features of in_line_eoln() -
 173   slurp all arguments into one single text element - and one feature
 174   of in_line() - put trailing punctuation out of scope.
 175   Found in mount_nfs(8) and exports(5), search for "Appendix".
 176
 177 - in enclosures, mandoc sometimes fancies a bogus end of sentence
 178   reminded by jmc@  Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:13:39 +0059
 179
 180 ************************************************************************
 181 * formatting issues: gratuitious differences
 182 ************************************************************************
 183
 184 - .Rv (and probably .Ex) print different text if an `Nm' has been named
 185   or not (run a manual without `Nm blah' to see this).  I'm not sure
 186   that this exists in the wild, but it's still an error.
 187
 188 - In .Bl -bullet, the groff bullet is "+\b+\bo\bo", the mandoc bullet
 189   is just "o\bo".
 190   see for example OpenBSD ksh(1)
 191
 192 - The characters "|" and "\*(Ba" should never be bold,
 193   not even in the middle of a word, e.g. ".Cm b\*(Bac" in
 194   "mknod [-m mode] name b|c major minor"
 195   in OpenBSD ksh(1)
 196
 197 - A bogus .Pp between two .It must not produce a double blank line,
 198   see between -R and -r in OpenBSD rm(1), before "update" in mount(8),
 199   or in DIAGNOSTICS in init(8), or before "is always true" in ksh(1).
 200   The same happens with .Pp just before .El, see bgpd.conf(5).
 201   Also have `It' complain if `Pp' is invoked at certain times (not
 202   -compact?).
 203
 204 - If the *first* line after .It is .Pp, break the line right after
 205   the tag, do not pad with space characters before breaking.
 206   See the description of the a, c, and i commands in sed(1).
 207
 208 - If the first line after .It is .D1, do not assert a blank line
 209   in between, see for example tmux(1).
 210   reported by nicm@  13 Jan 2011 00:18:57 +0000
 211
 212 - .Nx 1.0a
 213   should be "NetBSD 1.0A", not "NetBSD 1.0a",
 214   see OpenBSD ccdconfig(8).
 215
 216 - In .Bl -tag, if a tag exceeds the right margin and must be continued
 217   on the next line, it must be indented by -width, not width+1;
 218   see "rule block|pass" in OpenBSD ifconfig(8).
 219
 220 - When the -width string contains macros, the macros must be rendered
 221   before measuring the width, for example
 222     .Bl -tag -width ".Dv message"
 223   in magic(5), located in src/usr.bin/file, is the same
 224   as -width 7n, not -width 11n.
 225
 226 - The \& zero-width character counts as output.
 227   That is, when it is alone on a line between two .Pp,
 228   we want three blank lines, not two as in mandoc.
 229
 230 - When .Fn arguments exceed one output line, all but the first
 231   should be indented, see e.g. rpc(3);
 232   reported by jmc@ on discuss@  Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:48:33 +0100
 233
 234 - .Ns should work when called at the end of an input line, see
 235   the following code in vi(1):
 236     .It Xo
 237     .Op Ar line
 238     .Cm a Ns Op Cm ppend Ns
 239     .Op Cm !\&
 240     .Xc
 241     The input text is appended after the specified line.
 242
 243 - Header lines of excessive length:
 244   Port OpenBSD man_term.c rev. 1.25 to mdoc_term.c
 245   and document it in mdoc(7) and man(7) COMPATIBILITY
 246   found while talking to Chris Bennett
 247
 248 - In man(7), the sequence
 249     .HP
 250     one line of regular text
 251     .SH
 252   should not produce two blank lines before the .SH,
 253   see for example named-checkconf(8).
 254
 255 - In man(7), the sequence
 256     regular text
 257     .RS
 258     .IP
 259   should have a blank line between the text and the beginning of the
 260   indented paragraph, see for example sudo(1).
 261
 262 - At least sometimes, .sp is ignored right after .SH; see named.conf(5).
 263
 264 - trailing whitespace must be ignored even when followed by a font escape,
 265   see for example
 266     makes
 267     \fBdig \fR
 268     operate in batch mode
 269   in dig(1).
 270
 271 ************************************************************************
 272 * error reporting issues
 273 ************************************************************************
 274
 275 ************************************************************************
 276 * performance issues
 277 ************************************************************************
 278
 279 Several areas can be cleaned up to make mandoc even faster.  These are
 280
 281 - improve hashing mechanism for macros (quite important: performance)
 282
 283 - improve hashing mechanism for characters (not as important)
 284
 285 - the PDF file is HUGE: this can be reduced by using relative offsets
 286
 287 ************************************************************************
 288 * structural issues
 289 ************************************************************************
 290
 291 - Find better ways to prevent endless loops
 292   in roff(7) macro and string expansion.
 293
 294 - Finish cleanup of date handling.
 295   Decide which formats should be recognized where.
 296   Update both mdoc(7) and man(7) documentation.
 297   Triggered by  Tim van der Molen  Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:30:45 +0100