1 .\" $Id: mandoc.1,v 1.185 2017/05/16 19:06:30 schwarze Exp $
3 .\" Copyright (c) 2009, 2010, 2011 Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@bsd.lv>
4 .\" Copyright (c) 2012, 2014-2017 Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>
6 .\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
7 .\" purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
8 .\" copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
10 .\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
11 .\" WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
12 .\" MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
13 .\" ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
14 .\" WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
15 .\" ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
16 .\" OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
18 .Dd $Mdocdate: May 16 2017 $
23 .Nd format manual pages
27 .Op Fl I Cm os Ns = Ns Ar name
39 manual pages for display.
47 text from stdin and produces
51 The options are as follows:
54 If the standard output is a terminal device and
58 to paginate the output, just like
62 Copy the formatted manual pages to the standard output without using
66 It can be specified to override
68 .It Fl I Cm os Ns = Ns Ar name
69 Override the default operating system
79 Specify the input encoding.
87 If not specified, autodetection uses the first match in the following
91 If the first three bytes of the input file are the UTF-8 byte order
92 mark (BOM, 0xefbbbf), input is interpreted as
95 If the first or second line of the input file matches the
99 .D1 .\e" -*- Oo ...; Oc coding: Ar encoding ; No -*-
101 then input is interpreted according to
104 If the first non-ASCII byte in the file introduces a valid UTF-8
105 sequence, input is interpreted as
108 Otherwise, input is interpreted as
114 all input files are interpreted as
118 all input files are interpreted as
120 By default, the input language is automatically detected for each file:
121 if the the first macro is
127 parser is used; otherwise, the
130 With other arguments,
134 Comma-separated output options.
139 for available formats.
143 Specify the minimum message
145 to be reported on the standard error output and to affect the exit status.
170 to exit after parsing a file that causes warnings or errors of at least
172 No formatted output will be produced from that file.
177 are requested, they can be joined with a comma, for example
178 .Fl W Cm error , Ns Cm stop .
180 Read input from zero or more files.
181 If unspecified, reads from stdin.
182 If multiple files are specified,
184 will halt with the first failed parse.
189 are also supported and are documented in man(1).
196 also supports the options
203 are mutually exclusive and override each other.
207 utility accepts the following
209 arguments, which correspond to output modes:
210 .Bl -tag -width "-T markdown"
212 Produce 7-bit ASCII output.
216 Produce HTML5, CSS1, and MathML output.
220 Parse only: produce no output.
224 Encode output using the current locale.
239 .Sx Markdown Output .
245 Produce PostScript output.
247 .Sx PostScript Output .
249 Produce an indented parse tree.
251 .Sx Syntax tree output .
253 Encode output in the UTF\-8 multi-byte format.
257 This is a synonym for
261 If multiple input files are specified, these will be processed by the
262 corresponding filter in-order.
266 is rendered in standard 7-bit ASCII documented in
269 Font styles are applied by using back-spaced encoding such that an
273 .Sq _ Ns \e[bs] Ns c ,
276 is the back-space character number 8.
277 Emboldened characters are rendered as
278 .Sq c Ns \e[bs] Ns c .
280 The special characters documented in
282 are rendered best-effort in an ASCII equivalent.
284 Output width is limited to 78 visible columns unless literal input lines
289 arguments are accepted:
291 .It Cm indent Ns = Ns Ar indent
292 The left margin for normal text is set to
294 blank characters instead of the default of five for
298 Increasing this is not recommended; it may result in degraded formatting,
299 for example overfull lines or ugly line breaks.
300 .It Cm width Ns = Ns Ar width
301 The output width is set to
303 which will normalise to \(>=58.
308 conforms to HTML5 using optional self-closing tags.
309 Default styles use only CSS1.
310 Equations rendered from
316 file documents style-sheet classes available for customising output.
317 If a style-sheet is not specified with
320 defaults to simple output (via an embedded style-sheet)
321 readable in any graphical or text-based web
324 Special characters are rendered in decimal-encoded UTF\-8.
328 arguments are accepted:
331 Omit the <!DOCTYPE> declaration and the <html>, <head>, and <body>
332 elements and only emit the subtree below the <body> element.
335 argument will be ignored.
336 This is useful when embedding manual content within existing documents.
337 .It Cm includes Ns = Ns Ar fmt
342 is used as a template for linked header files (usually via the
347 are replaced with the include filename.
348 The default is not to present a
350 .It Cm man Ns = Ns Ar fmt
354 .Ar ../html%S/%N.%S.html ,
355 is used as a template for linked manuals (usually via the
362 are replaced with the linked manual's name and section, respectively.
363 If no section is included, section 1 is assumed.
364 The default is not to
366 .It Cm style Ns = Ns Ar style.css
369 is used for an external style-sheet.
370 This must be a valid absolute or
374 Locale-depending output encoding is triggered with
378 This option is not available on all systems: systems without locale
379 support, or those whose internal representation is not natively UCS-4,
384 for font style specification and available command-line arguments.
386 Translate input format into
389 This is useful for distributing manual sources to legacy systems
396 is passed as input, it is translated into
398 If the input format is
400 the input is copied to the output, expanding any
404 The parser is also run, and as usual, the
408 are displayed before copying the input to the output.
415 .Lk http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax.text\
416 "John Gruber's 2004 specification" .
417 The output also almost conforms to the
418 .Lk http://commonmark.org/ CommonMark
421 The character set used for the markdown output is ASCII.
422 Non-ASCII characters are encoded as HTML entities.
423 Since that is not possible in literal font contexts, because these
424 are rendered as code spans and code blocks in the markdown output,
425 non-ASCII characters are transliterated to ASCII approximations in
428 Markdown is a very weak markup language, so all semantic markup is
429 lost, and even part of the presentational markup may be lost.
430 Do not use this as an intermediate step in converting to HTML;
440 input languages are not supported by
444 PDF-1.1 output may be generated by
447 .Sx PostScript Output
450 arguments and defaults.
451 .Ss PostScript Output
454 Level-2 pages may be generated by
456 Output pages default to letter sized and are rendered in the Times font
458 Margins are calculated as 1/9 the page length and width.
461 Special characters are rendered as in
466 arguments are accepted:
468 .It Cm paper Ns = Ns Ar name
478 You may also manually specify dimensions as
480 width by height in millimetres.
481 If an unknown value is encountered,
488 to force a UTF\-8 locale.
491 for details and options.
492 .Ss Syntax tree output
495 to show a human readable representation of the syntax tree.
496 It is useful for debugging the source code of manual pages.
497 The exact format is subject to change, so don't write parsers for it.
499 The first paragraph shows meta data found in the
504 line, or the fallbacks used.
506 In the tree dump, each output line shows one syntax tree node.
507 Child nodes are indented with respect to their parent node.
512 For macro nodes, the macro name; for text and
515 There is a special format for
519 Node type (text, elem, block, head, body, body-end, tail, tbl, eqn).
524 An opening parenthesis if the node is an opening delimiter.
526 An asterisk if the node starts a new input line.
528 The input line number (starting at one).
532 The input column number (starting at one).
534 A closing parenthesis if the node is a closing delimiter.
536 A full stop if the node ends a sentence.
538 BROKEN if the node is a block broken by another block.
540 NOSRC if the node is not in the input file,
541 but automatically generated from macros.
543 NOPRT if the node is not supposed to generate output
544 for any output format.
550 argument is accepted:
553 Skip validation and show the unvalidated syntax tree.
554 This can help to find out whether a given behaviour is caused by
555 the parser or by the validator.
556 Meta data is not available in this case.
559 .Bl -tag -width MANPAGER
561 Any non-empty value of the environment variable
563 is used instead of the standard pagination program,
574 Specifies the pagination program to use when
577 If neither PAGER nor MANPAGER is defined,
590 utility exits with one of the following values, controlled by the message
596 .Bl -tag -width Ds -compact
598 No style suggestions, warnings or errors occurred, or those that
599 did were ignored because they were lower than the requested
602 At least one style suggestion occurred, but no warning or error, and
606 At least one warning occurred, but no error, and
612 At least one parsing error occurred,
613 but no unsupported feature was encountered, and
619 At least one unsupported feature was encountered, and
625 Invalid command line arguments were specified.
626 No input files have been read.
628 An operating system error occurred, for example exhaustion
629 of memory, file descriptors, or process table entries.
632 to exit at once, possibly in the middle of parsing or formatting a file.
640 To page manuals to the terminal:
642 .Dl $ mandoc \-W all,stop mandoc.1 2\*(Gt&1 | less
643 .Dl $ mandoc mandoc.1 mdoc.3 mdoc.7 | less
645 To produce HTML manuals with
649 .Dl $ mandoc \-T html -O style=mandoc.css mdoc.7 \*(Gt mdoc.7.html
651 To check over a large set of manuals:
653 .Dl $ mandoc \-T lint \(gafind /usr/src -name \e*\e.[1-9]\(ga
655 To produce a series of PostScript manuals for A4 paper:
657 .Dl $ mandoc \-T ps \-O paper=a4 mdoc.7 man.7 \*(Gt manuals.ps
663 format, for use on systems lacking an
667 .Dl $ mandoc \-T man foo.mdoc \*(Gt foo.man
669 Messages displayed by
673 .D1 Nm Ns : Ar file : Ns Ar line : Ns Ar column : level : message : macro args
675 Line and column numbers start at 1.
676 Both are omitted for messages referring to an input file as a whole.
677 Macro names and arguments are omitted where meaningless.
678 Fatal messages about invalid command line arguments
679 or operating system errors, for example when memory is exhausted,
686 Message levels have the following meanings:
687 .Bl -tag -width "warning"
689 An input file uses unsupported low-level
692 The output may be incomplete and/or misformatted,
693 so using GNU troff instead of
695 to process the file may be preferable.
697 An input file contains invalid syntax that cannot be safely interpreted.
698 By discarding part of the input or inserting missing tokens,
699 the parser is able to continue, and the error does not prevent
700 generation of formatted output, but typically, preparing that
701 output involves information loss, broken document structure
702 or unintended formatting, no matter whether
704 or GNU troff is used.
705 In many cases, the output of
707 and GNU troff is identical, but in some,
709 is more resilient than GNU troff with respect to malformed input.
711 Non-existent or unreadable input files are also reported on the
714 In that case, the parser cannot even be started and no output
715 is produced from those input files.
717 An input file uses obsolete, discouraged or non-portable syntax.
718 All the same, the meaning of the input is unambiguous and a correct
719 rendering can be produced.
720 Documents causing warnings may render poorly when using other
721 formatting tools instead of
724 An input file uses dubious or discouraged style.
725 This is not a complaint about the syntax, and probably neither
726 formatting nor portability are in danger.
727 While great care is taken to avoid false positives on the higher
730 level tries to reduce the probability that issues go unnoticed,
731 so it may occasionally issue bogus suggestions.
732 Please use your good judgement to decide whether any particular
734 suggestion really justifies a change to the input file.
743 levels except those about non-existent or unreadable input files
744 are hidden unless their level, or a lower level, is requested using a
749 .Ss Warnings related to the document prologue
751 .It Sy "missing manual title, using UNTITLED"
755 macro has no arguments, or there is no
757 macro before the first non-prologue macro.
758 .It Sy "missing manual title, using \(dq\(dq"
762 macro, or it has no arguments.
763 .It Sy "lower case character in document title"
765 The title is still used as given in the
770 .It Sy "missing manual section, using \(dq\(dq"
776 macro lacks the mandatory section argument.
777 .It Sy "unknown manual section"
779 The section number in a
781 line is invalid, but still used.
782 .It Sy "missing date, using today's date"
784 The document was parsed as
790 macro has no arguments or only empty arguments;
791 or the document was parsed as
797 macro has less than three arguments or its third argument is empty.
798 .It Sy "cannot parse date, using it verbatim"
804 macro does not follow the conventional format.
805 .It Sy "missing Os macro, using \(dq\(dq"
807 The default or current system is not shown in this case.
808 .It Sy "duplicate prologue macro"
810 One of the prologue macros occurs more than once.
811 The last instance overrides all previous ones.
812 .It Sy "late prologue macro"
818 macro occurs after some non-prologue macro, but still takes effect.
819 .It Sy "skipping late title macro"
823 macro appears after the first non-prologue macro.
824 Traditional formatters cannot handle this because
825 they write the page header before parsing the document body.
826 Even though this technical restriction does not apply to
828 traditional semantics is preserved.
829 The late macro is discarded including its arguments.
830 .It Sy "prologue macros out of order"
832 The prologue macros are not given in the conventional order
836 All three macros are used even when given in another order.
838 .Ss Warnings regarding document structure
840 .It Sy ".so is fragile, better use ln(1)"
842 Including files only works when the parser program runs with the correct
843 current working directory.
844 .It Sy "no document body"
846 The document body contains neither text nor macros.
847 An empty document is shown, consisting only of a header and a footer line.
848 .It Sy "content before first section header"
850 Some macros or text precede the first
855 The offending macros and text are parsed and added to the top level
856 of the syntax tree, outside any section block.
857 .It Sy "first section is not NAME"
859 The argument of the first
867 .It Sy "NAME section without Nm before Nd"
869 The NAME section does not contain any
871 child macro before the first
874 .It Sy "NAME section without description"
876 The NAME section lacks the mandatory
879 .It Sy "description not at the end of NAME"
881 The NAME section does contain an
883 child macro, but other content follows it.
884 .It Sy "bad NAME section content"
886 The NAME section contains plain text or macros other than
890 .It Sy "missing comma before name"
892 The NAME section contains an
894 macro that is neither the first one nor preceded by a comma.
895 .It Sy "missing description line, using \(dq\(dq"
899 macro lacks the required argument.
900 The title line of the manual will end after the dash.
901 .It Sy "description line outside NAME section"
905 macro appears outside the NAME section.
906 The arguments are printed anyway and the following text is used for
908 but none of that behaviour is portable.
909 .It Sy "sections out of conventional order"
911 A standard section occurs after another section it usually precedes.
912 All section titles are used as given,
913 and the order of sections is not changed.
914 .It Sy "duplicate section title"
916 The same standard section title occurs more than once.
917 .It Sy "unexpected section"
919 A standard section header occurs in a section of the manual
920 where it normally isn't useful.
921 .It Sy "unusual Xr order"
923 In the SEE ALSO section, an
925 macro with a lower section number follows one with a higher number,
928 macros referring to the same section are out of alphabetical order.
929 .It Sy "unusual Xr punctuation"
931 In the SEE ALSO section, punctuation between two
933 macros differs from a single comma, or there is trailing punctuation
937 .It Sy "AUTHORS section without An macro"
939 An AUTHORS sections contains no
941 macros, or only empty ones.
942 Probably, there are author names lacking markup.
944 .Ss "Warnings related to macros and nesting"
946 .It Sy "obsolete macro"
950 manual for replacements.
951 .It Sy "macro neither callable nor escaped"
953 The name of a macro that is not callable appears on a macro line.
954 It is printed verbatim.
955 If the intention is to call it, move it to its own input line;
956 otherwise, escape it by prepending
958 .It Sy "skipping paragraph macro"
961 documents, this happens
964 at the beginning and end of sections and subsections
966 right before non-compact lists and displays
968 at the end of items in non-column, non-compact lists
970 and for multiple consecutive paragraph macros.
974 documents, it happens
986 macros having neither head nor body arguments
997 .It Sy "moving paragraph macro out of list"
1001 list contains a trailing paragraph macro.
1002 The paragraph macro is moved after the end of the list.
1003 .It Sy "skipping no-space macro"
1005 An input line begins with an
1008 The macro is ignored.
1009 .It Sy "blocks badly nested"
1011 If two blocks intersect, one should completely contain the other.
1012 Otherwise, rendered output is likely to look strange in any output
1013 format, and rendering in SGML-based output formats is likely to be
1014 outright wrong because such languages do not support badly nested
1016 Typical examples of badly nested blocks are
1017 .Qq Ic \&Ao \&Bo \&Ac \&Bc
1019 .Qq Ic \&Ao \&Bq \&Ac .
1027 .It Sy "nested displays are not portable"
1034 display occurs nested inside another
1039 but fails with most other implementations.
1040 .It Sy "moving content out of list"
1044 list block contains text or macros before the first
1047 The offending children are moved before the beginning of the list.
1048 .It Sy "fill mode already enabled, skipping"
1052 request occurs even though the document is still in fill mode,
1053 or already switched back to fill mode.
1055 .It Sy "fill mode already disabled, skipping"
1059 request occurs even though the document already switched to no-fill mode
1060 and did not switch back to fill mode yet.
1062 .It Sy "line scope broken"
1064 While parsing the next-line scope of the previous macro,
1065 another macro is found that prematurely terminates the previous one.
1066 The previous, interrupted macro is deleted from the parse tree.
1068 .Ss "Warnings related to missing arguments"
1070 .It Sy "skipping empty request"
1072 The macro name is missing from a macro definition request,
1075 control statement or operation keyword lacks its required argument.
1076 .It Sy "conditional request controls empty scope"
1078 A conditional request is only useful if any of the following
1079 follows it on the same logical input line:
1084 keyword to open a multi-line scope.
1086 A request or macro or some text, resulting in a single-line scope.
1088 The immediate end of the logical line without any intervening whitespace,
1089 resulting in next-line scope.
1091 Here, a conditional request is followed by trailing whitespace only,
1092 and there is no other content on its logical input line.
1093 Note that it doesn't matter whether the logical input line is split
1094 across multiple physical input lines using
1096 line continuation characters.
1097 This is one of the rare cases
1098 where trailing whitespace is syntactically significant.
1099 The conditional request controls a scope containing whitespace only,
1100 so it is unlikely to have a significant effect,
1101 except that it may control a following
1104 .It Sy "skipping empty macro"
1106 The indicated macro has no arguments and hence no effect.
1107 .It Sy "empty block"
1118 block contains nothing in its body and will produce no output.
1119 .It Sy "empty argument, using 0n"
1121 The required width is missing after
1128 .It Sy "missing display type, using -ragged"
1132 macro is invoked without the required display type.
1133 .It Sy "list type is not the first argument"
1137 macro, at least one other argument precedes the type argument.
1140 utility copes with any argument order, but some other
1142 implementations do not.
1143 .It Sy "missing -width in -tag list, using 8n"
1152 .It Sy "missing utility name, using \(dq\(dq"
1156 macro is called without an argument before
1158 has first been called with an argument.
1159 .It Sy "missing function name, using \(dq\(dq"
1163 macro is called without an argument.
1164 No function name is printed.
1165 .It Sy "empty head in list item"
1177 macro lacks the required argument.
1178 The item head is left empty.
1179 .It Sy "empty list item"
1191 An empty list item is shown.
1192 .It Sy "missing font type, using \efR"
1196 macro has no argument.
1197 It switches to the default font.
1198 .It Sy "unknown font type, using \efR"
1202 argument is invalid.
1203 The default font is used instead.
1204 .It Sy "nothing follows prefix"
1208 macro has no argument, or only one argument and no macro follows
1209 on the same input line.
1210 This defeats its purpose; in particular, spacing is not suppressed
1211 before the text or macros following on the next input line.
1212 .It Sy "empty reference block"
1216 macro is immediately followed by an
1218 macro on the next input line.
1219 Such an empty block does not produce any output.
1220 .It Sy "missing section argument"
1224 macro lacks its second, section number argument.
1225 The first argument, i.e. the name, is printed, but without subsequent
1227 .It Sy "missing -std argument, adding it"
1233 macro lacks the required
1240 even when it is not specified, but other implementations may not.
1241 .It Sy "missing option string, using \(dq\(dq"
1245 macro is invoked without any argument.
1246 An empty pair of square brackets is shown.
1247 .It Sy "missing resource identifier, using \(dq\(dq"
1251 macro is invoked without any argument.
1252 An empty pair of angle brackets is shown.
1253 .It Sy "missing eqn box, using \(dq\(dq"
1255 A diacritic mark or a binary operator is found,
1256 but there is nothing to the left of it.
1257 An empty box is inserted.
1259 .Ss "Warnings related to bad macro arguments"
1261 .It Sy "unterminated quoted argument"
1263 Macro arguments can be enclosed in double quote characters
1264 such that space characters and macro names contained in the quoted
1265 argument need not be escaped.
1266 The closing quote of the last argument of a macro can be omitted.
1267 However, omitting it is not recommended because it makes the code
1269 .It Sy "duplicate argument"
1275 macro has more than one
1282 All but the last instances of these arguments are ignored.
1283 .It Sy "skipping duplicate argument"
1287 macro has more than one
1292 All but the first of these arguments are ignored.
1293 .It Sy "skipping duplicate display type"
1297 macro has more than one type argument; the first one is used.
1298 .It Sy "skipping duplicate list type"
1302 macro has more than one type argument; the first one is used.
1303 .It Sy "skipping -width argument"
1317 .It Sy "wrong number of cells"
1320 list, the number of tabs or
1322 macros is less than the number expected from the list header line
1323 or exceeds the expected number by more than one.
1324 Missing cells remain empty, and all cells exceeding the number of
1325 columns are joined into one single cell.
1326 .It Sy "unknown AT&T UNIX version"
1330 macro has an invalid argument.
1331 It is used verbatim, with
1334 .It Sy "comma in function argument"
1340 macro contains a comma; it should probably be split into two arguments.
1341 .It Sy "parenthesis in function name"
1343 The first argument of an
1347 macro contains an opening or closing parenthesis; that's probably wrong,
1348 parentheses are added automatically.
1349 .It Sy "invalid content in Rs block"
1353 block contains plain text or non-% macros.
1354 The bogus content is left in the syntax tree.
1355 Formatting may be poor.
1356 .It Sy "invalid Boolean argument"
1360 macro has an argument other than
1364 The invalid argument is moved out of the macro, which leaves the macro
1365 empty, causing it to toggle the spacing mode.
1366 .It Sy "unknown font, skipping request"
1374 layout modifier has an unknown
1377 .It Sy "odd number of characters in request"
1381 request contains an odd number of characters.
1382 The last character is mapped to the blank character.
1384 .Ss "Warnings related to plain text"
1386 .It Sy "blank line in fill mode, using .sp"
1388 The meaning of blank input lines is only well-defined in non-fill mode:
1389 In fill mode, line breaks of text input lines are not supposed to be
1391 However, for compatibility with groff, blank lines in fill mode
1395 .It Sy "tab in filled text"
1397 The meaning of tab characters is only well-defined in non-fill mode:
1398 In fill mode, whitespace is not supposed to be significant
1399 on text input lines.
1400 As an implementation dependent choice, tab characters on text lines
1401 are passed through to the formatters in any case.
1402 Given that the text before the tab character will be filled,
1403 it is hard to predict which tab stop position the tab will advance to.
1404 .It Sy "whitespace at end of input line"
1405 .Pq mdoc , man , roff
1406 Whitespace at the end of input lines is almost never semantically
1407 significant \(em but in the odd case where it might be, it is
1408 extremely confusing when reviewing and maintaining documents.
1409 .It Sy "new sentence, new line"
1411 A new sentence starts in the middle of a text line.
1412 Start it on a new input line to help formatters produce correct spacing.
1413 .It Sy "bad comment style"
1415 Comment lines start with a dot, a backslash, and a double-quote character.
1418 utility treats the line as a comment line even without the backslash,
1419 but leaving out the backslash might not be portable.
1420 .It Sy "invalid escape sequence"
1422 An escape sequence has an invalid opening argument delimiter, lacks the
1423 closing argument delimiter, or the argument has too few characters.
1424 If the argument is incomplete,
1428 expand to an empty string,
1434 to the length of the incomplete argument.
1435 All other invalid escape sequences are ignored.
1436 .It Sy "undefined string, using \(dq\(dq"
1438 If a string is used without being defined before,
1439 its value is implicitly set to the empty string.
1440 However, defining strings explicitly before use
1441 keeps the code more readable.
1443 .Ss "Warnings related to tables"
1445 .It Sy "tbl line starts with span"
1447 The first cell in a table layout line is a horizontal span
1449 Data provided for this cell is ignored, and nothing is printed in the cell.
1450 .It Sy "tbl column starts with span"
1452 The first line of a table layout specification
1453 requests a vertical span
1455 Data provided for this cell is ignored, and nothing is printed in the cell.
1456 .It Sy "skipping vertical bar in tbl layout"
1458 A table layout specification contains more than two consecutive vertical bars.
1459 A double bar is printed, all additional bars are discarded.
1461 .Ss "Errors related to tables"
1463 .It Sy "non-alphabetic character in tbl options"
1465 The table options line contains a character other than a letter,
1466 blank, or comma where the beginning of an option name is expected.
1467 The character is ignored.
1468 .It Sy "skipping unknown tbl option"
1470 The table options line contains a string of letters that does not
1471 match any known option name.
1472 The word is ignored.
1473 .It Sy "missing tbl option argument"
1475 A table option that requires an argument is not followed by an
1476 opening parenthesis, or the opening parenthesis is immediately
1477 followed by a closing parenthesis.
1478 The option is ignored.
1479 .It Sy "wrong tbl option argument size"
1481 A table option argument contains an invalid number of characters.
1482 Both the option and the argument are ignored.
1483 .It Sy "empty tbl layout"
1485 A table layout specification is completely empty,
1486 specifying zero lines and zero columns.
1487 As a fallback, a single left-justified column is used.
1488 .It Sy "invalid character in tbl layout"
1490 A table layout specification contains a character that can neither
1491 be interpreted as a layout key character nor as a layout modifier,
1492 or a modifier precedes the first key.
1493 The invalid character is discarded.
1494 .It Sy "unmatched parenthesis in tbl layout"
1496 A table layout specification contains an opening parenthesis,
1497 but no matching closing parenthesis.
1498 The rest of the input line, starting from the parenthesis, has no effect.
1499 .It Sy "tbl without any data cells"
1501 A table does not contain any data cells.
1502 It will probably produce no output.
1503 .It Sy "ignoring data in spanned tbl cell"
1505 A table cell is marked as a horizontal span
1509 in the table layout, but it contains data.
1510 The data is ignored.
1511 .It Sy "ignoring extra tbl data cells"
1513 A data line contains more cells than the corresponding layout line.
1514 The data in the extra cells is ignored.
1515 .It Sy "data block open at end of tbl"
1517 A data block is opened with
1519 but never closed with a matching
1521 The remaining data lines of the table are all put into one cell,
1522 and any remaining cells stay empty.
1524 .Ss "Errors related to roff, mdoc, and man code"
1526 .It Sy "input stack limit exceeded, infinite loop?"
1528 Explicit recursion limits are implemented for the following features,
1529 in order to prevent infinite loops:
1532 expansion of nested escape sequences
1533 including expansion of strings and number registers,
1535 expansion of nested user-defined macros,
1541 When a limit is hit, the output is incorrect, typically losing
1542 some content, but the parser can continue.
1543 .It Sy "skipping bad character"
1544 .Pq mdoc , man , roff
1545 The input file contains a byte that is not a printable
1548 The message mentions the character number.
1549 The offending byte is replaced with a question mark
1551 Consider editing the input file to replace the byte with an ASCII
1552 transliteration of the intended character.
1553 .It Sy "skipping unknown macro"
1554 .Pq mdoc , man , roff
1555 The first identifier on a request or macro line is neither recognized as a
1557 request, nor as a user-defined macro, nor, respectively, as an
1562 It may be mistyped or unsupported.
1563 The request or macro is discarded including its arguments.
1564 .It Sy "skipping insecure request"
1566 An input file attempted to run a shell command
1567 or to read or write an external file.
1568 Such attempts are denied for security reasons.
1569 .It Sy "skipping item outside list"
1573 macro occurs outside any
1578 delimiter occurs outside any pile.
1579 It is discarded including its arguments.
1580 .It Sy "skipping column outside column list"
1584 macro occurs outside any
1587 It is discarded including its arguments.
1588 .It Sy "skipping end of block that is not open"
1589 .Pq mdoc , man , eqn , tbl , roff
1590 Various syntax elements can only be used to explicitly close blocks
1591 that have previously been opened.
1594 block closing macro, a
1601 right delimiter or closing brace, or the end of an equation, table, or
1603 conditional request is encountered but no matching block is open.
1604 The offending request or macro is discarded.
1605 .It Sy "fewer RS blocks open, skipping"
1609 macro is invoked with an argument, but less than the specified number of
1615 .It Sy "inserting missing end of block"
1619 macros as well as tables require explicit closing by dedicated macros.
1620 A block that doesn't support bad nesting
1621 ends before all of its children are properly closed.
1622 The open child nodes are closed implicitly.
1623 .It Sy "appending missing end of block"
1624 .Pq mdoc , man , eqn , tbl , roff
1625 At the end of the document, an explicit
1633 block, an equation, table, or
1635 conditional or ignore block is still open.
1636 The open block is closed implicitly.
1637 .It Sy "escaped character not allowed in a name"
1639 Macro, string and register identifiers consist of printable,
1640 non-whitespace ASCII characters.
1641 Escape sequences and characters and strings expressed in terms of them
1642 cannot form part of a name.
1643 The first argument of an
1651 request, or any argument of an
1653 request, or the name of a request or user defined macro being called,
1654 is terminated by an escape sequence.
1660 the request has no effect at all.
1667 what was parsed up to this point is used as the arguments to the request,
1668 and the rest of the input line is discarded including the escape sequence.
1669 When parsing for a request or a user-defined macro name to be called,
1670 only the escape sequence is discarded.
1671 The characters preceding it are used as the request or macro name,
1672 the characters following it are used as the arguments to the request or macro.
1673 .It Sy "NOT IMPLEMENTED: Bd -file"
1675 For security reasons, the
1677 macro does not support the
1680 By requesting the inclusion of a sensitive file, a malicious document
1681 might otherwise trick a privileged user into inadvertently displaying
1682 the file on the screen, revealing the file content to bystanders.
1683 The argument is ignored including the file name following it.
1684 .It Sy "skipping display without arguments"
1688 block macro does not have any arguments.
1689 The block is discarded, and the block content is displayed in
1690 whatever mode was active before the block.
1691 .It Sy "missing list type, using -item"
1695 macro fails to specify the list type.
1696 .It Sy "missing manual name, using \(dq\(dq"
1700 or any call in the NAME section, lacks the required argument.
1701 .It Sy "uname(3) system call failed, using UNKNOWN"
1705 macro is called without arguments, and the
1710 can be compiled with
1712 .Fl D Cm OSNAME=\(dq\e\(dq Ar string Cm \e\(dq\(dq .
1714 .It Sy "unknown standard specifier"
1718 macro has an unknown argument and is discarded.
1719 .It Sy "skipping request without numeric argument"
1728 statement has a non-numeric or negative argument or no argument at all.
1729 The invalid request or statement is ignored.
1730 .It Sy "NOT IMPLEMENTED: .so with absolute path or \(dq..\(dq"
1732 For security reasons,
1736 file inclusion requests only with relative paths
1737 and only without ascending to any parent directory.
1738 By requesting the inclusion of a sensitive file, a malicious document
1739 might otherwise trick a privileged user into inadvertently displaying
1740 the file on the screen, revealing the file content to bystanders.
1742 only shows the path as it appears behind
1744 .It Sy ".so request failed"
1748 request requires reading an external file, but the file could not be
1751 only shows the path as it appears behind
1753 .It Sy "skipping all arguments"
1754 .Pq mdoc , man , eqn , roff
1770 macro in a list that don't support item heads, a
1789 block closing request is invoked with at least one argument.
1790 All arguments are ignored.
1791 .It Sy "skipping excess arguments"
1792 .Pq mdoc , man , roff
1793 A macro or request is invoked with too many arguments:
1794 .Bl -dash -offset 2n -width 2n -compact
1803 with more than one argument
1806 with another argument after
1812 with more than one argument or with a non-integer argument
1817 family with more than two arguments
1820 with more than three arguments
1823 with more than five arguments
1829 with invalid arguments
1831 The excess arguments are ignored.
1833 .Ss Unsupported features
1835 .It Sy "input too large"
1839 cannot handle input files larger than its arbitrary size limit
1840 of 2^31 bytes (2 Gigabytes).
1841 Since useful manuals are always small, this is not a problem in practice.
1842 Parsing is aborted as soon as the condition is detected.
1843 .It Sy "unsupported control character"
1845 An ASCII control character supported by other
1847 implementations but not by
1849 was found in an input file.
1850 It is replaced by a question mark.
1851 .It Sy "unsupported roff request"
1853 An input file contains a
1855 request supported by GNU troff or Heirloom troff but not by
1857 and it is likely that this will cause information loss
1858 or considerable misformatting.
1859 .It Sy "eqn delim option in tbl"
1861 The options line of a table defines equation delimiters.
1862 Any equation source code contained in the table will be printed unformatted.
1863 .It Sy "unsupported table layout modifier"
1865 A table layout specification contains an
1868 The modifier is discarded.
1869 .It Sy "ignoring macro in table"
1870 .Pq tbl , mdoc , man
1871 A table contains an invocation of an
1875 macro or of an undefined macro.
1876 The macro is ignored, and its arguments are handled
1877 as if they were a text line.
1891 utility first appeared in
1905 utility was written by
1906 .An Kristaps Dzonsons Aq Mt kristaps@bsd.lv
1907 and is maintained by
1908 .An Ingo Schwarze Aq Mt schwarze@openbsd.org .
git.ckatri.com / mandoc.git / blob