TODO

   1 ************************************************************************
   2 * Official mandoc TODO.
   3 * $Id: TODO,v 1.136 2012/06/12 20:21:04 kristaps Exp $
   4 ************************************************************************
   5
   6 ************************************************************************
   7 * missing features
   8 ************************************************************************
   9
  10 --- missing roff features ----------------------------------------------
  11
  12 - roff.c should treat \n(.H>23 and \n(.V>19 in the pod2man(1)
  13   preamble as true, see for example AUTHORS in MooseX::Getopt.3p
  14   reported by Andreas Voegele <mail at andreasvoegele dot com>
  15   Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:34:47 +0100 on ports@
  16
  17 - .ad (adjust margins)
  18   .ad l -- adjust left margin only (flush left)
  19   .ad r -- adjust right margin only (flush right)
  20   .ad c -- center text on line
  21   .ad b -- adjust both margins (alias: .ad n)
  22   .na   -- temporarily disable adjustment without changing the mode
  23   .ad   -- re-enable adjustment without changing the mode
  24   Adjustment mode is ignored while in no-fill mode (.nf).
  25
  26 - .it (line traps) occur in mysql(1), yasm_arch(7)
  27   generated by DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.71.1 <http://docbook.sf.net/>
  28   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:48:18 -0500
  29
  30 - .ns (no-space mode) occurs in xine-config(1)
  31   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
  32
  33 - xloadimage(1) wants .ti (temporary indent), rep by naddy@
  34   reported again by bentley@ in nmh(1)  Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:38:28 -0600
  35   also uses .ce (center N lines) and .fc (field control)
  36
  37 - .ta (tab settings) occurs in ircbug(1) and probably gnats(1)
  38   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:50:51 -0500
  39
  40 - \c (interrupted text) should prevent the line break
  41   even inside .Bd literal; that occurs in chat(8)
  42
  43 - using undefined strings or macros defines them to be empty
  44   wl@  Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:37:01 +0000
  45
  46 --- missing mdoc features ----------------------------------------------
  47
  48 - fix bad block nesting involving multiple identical explicit blocks
  49   see the OpenBSD mdoc_macro.c 1.47 commit message
  50
  51 - .Bl -column .Xo support is missing
  52   ultimate goal:
  53   restore .Xr and .Dv to
  54   lib/libc/compat-43/sigvec.3
  55   lib/libc/gen/signal.3
  56   lib/libc/sys/sigaction.2
  57
  58 - edge case: decide how to deal with blk_full bad nesting, e.g.
  59   .Sh .Nm .Bk .Nm .Ek .Sh found by jmc@ in ssh-keygen(1)
  60   from jmc@  Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:10:32 +0100
  61
  62 - \\ is now implemented correctly
  63   * when defining strings and macros using .ds and .de
  64   * when parsing roff(7) and man(7) macro arguments
  65   It does not yet work in mdoc(7) macro arguments
  66   because libmdoc does not yet use mandoc_getarg().
  67   Also check what happens in plain text, it must be identical to \e.
  68
  69 - .Bd -filled should not be the same as .Bd -ragged, but align both
  70   the left and right margin.  In groff, it is implemented in terms
  71   of .ad b, which we don't have either.  Found in cksum(1).
  72
  73 - implement blank `Bl -column', such as
  74   .Bl -column
  75   .It foo Ta bar
  76   .El
  77
  78 - explicitly disallow nested `Bl -column', which would clobber internal
  79   flags defined for struct mdoc_macro
  80
  81 - In .Bl -column .It, the end of the line probably has to be regarded
  82   as an implicit .Ta, if there could be one, see the following mildly
  83   ugly code from login.conf(5):
  84     .Bl -column minpasswordlen program xetcxmotd
  85     .It path Ta path Ta value of Dv _PATH_DEFPATH
  86     .br
  87     Default search path.
  88   reported by Michal Mazurek <akfaew at jasminek dot net>
  89   via jmc@ Thu, 7 Apr 2011 16:00:53 +0059
  90
  91 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, punctuation is handled like normal
  92   text, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Fl x . Ta ...' should give "-x -."
  93
  94 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, TERMP_IGNDELIM handling by `Pf'
  95   is not safe, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Pf a b .' gives "ab."
  96   but should give "ab ."
  97
  98 - set a meaningful default if no `Bl' list type is assigned
  99
 100 - have a blank `It' head for `Bl -tag' not puke
 101
 102 - prohibit `Nm' from having non-text HEAD children
 103   (e.g., NetBSD mDNSShared/dns-sd.1)
 104   (mdoc_html.c and mdoc_term.c `Nm' handlers can be slightly simplified)
 105
 106 - When there is free text in the SYNOPSIS and that free text contains
 107   the .Nm macro, groff somehow understands to treat the .Nm as an in-line
 108   macro, while mandoc treats it as a block macro and breaks the line.
 109   No idea how the logic for distinguishing in-line and block instances
 110   should be, needs investigation.
 111   uqs@  Thu, 2 Jun 2011 11:03:51 +0200
 112   uqs@  Thu, 2 Jun 2011 11:33:35 +0200
 113
 114 --- missing man features -----------------------------------------------
 115
 116 - groff an-ext.tmac macros (.UR, .UE) occur in xine(5)
 117   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
 118
 119 - -T[x]html doesn't stipulate non-collapsing spaces in literal mode
 120
 121 --- missing tbl features -----------------------------------------------
 122
 123 - implement basic non-parametric .de to support e.g. sox(1)
 124   reported by naddy@ Sat, 16 Oct 2010 23:51:57 +0200
 125   *** sox(1) still doesn't work, tbl(1) errors need investigation
 126
 127 - allow standalone `.' to be interpreted as an end-of-layout
 128   delimiter instead of being thrown away as a no-op roff line
 129   reported by Yuri Pankov, Wed 18 May 2011 11:34:59 CEST
 130
 131 --- missing misc features ----------------------------------------------
 132
 133 - clean up escape sequence handling, creating three classes:
 134   (1) fully implemented, or parsed and ignored without loss of content
 135   (2) unimplemented, potentially causing loss of content
 136       or serious mangling of formatting (e.g. \n) -> ERROR
 137       see textproc/mgdiff(1) for nice examples
 138   (3) undefined, just output the character -> perhaps WARNING
 139
 140 - The \t escape sequence is the same as a literal tab, see for example
 141   the ASCII table in hexdump(1) where
 142     .Bl -column \&000_nu \&001_so \&002_st \&003_et \&004_eo
 143     .It \&000\ nul\t001\ soh\t002\ stx\t003\ etx\t004\ eot\t005\ enq
 144   produces
 145     000 nul  001 soh  002 stx  003 etx  004 eot  005 enq
 146   and the example in oldrdist(1)
 147
 148 - look at pages generated from reStructeredText, e.g. devel/mercurial hg(1)
 149   These are a weird mixture of man(7) and custom autogenerated low-level
 150   roff stuff.  Figure out to what extent we can cope.
 151   For details, see http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
 152   noted by stsp@  Sat, 24 Apr 2010 09:17:55 +0200
 153   reminded by nicm@  Mon, 3 May 2010 09:52:41 +0100
 154
 155 - check compatibility with Plan9:
 156   http://swtch.com/usr/local/plan9/tmac/tmac.an
 157   http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/man7/man.html
 158   "Anthony J. Bentley" <anthonyjbentley@gmail.com> 28 Dec 2010 21:58:40 -0700
 159
 160 ************************************************************************
 161 * formatting issues: ugly output
 162 ************************************************************************
 163
 164 - a column list with blank `Ta' cells triggers a spurrious
 165   start-with-whitespace printing of a newline
 166
 167 - double quotes inside double quotes are escaped by doubling them
 168   implement this in mdoc(7), too
 169   so far, we only have it in roff(7) and man(7)
 170   reminded by millert@  Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:29:52 -0500
 171
 172 - perl(1) SYNOPSIS looks bad; reported by deraadt@
 173   1) man(7) seems to need SYNOPSIS .Nm blocks, too
 174
 175 - In .Bl -column,
 176   .It Em Authentication<tab>Key Length
 177   ought to render "Key Length" with emphasis, too,
 178   see OpenBSD iked.conf(5).
 179   reported again Nicolas Joly via wiz@ Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:20:00 +0200
 180
 181 - empty phrases in .Bl column produce too few blanks
 182   try e.g. .Bl -column It Ta Ta
 183   reported by millert Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:13:46 -0400
 184
 185 - .%T can have trailing punctuation.  Currently, it puts the trailing
 186   punctuation into a trailing MDOC_TEXT element inside its own scope.
 187   That element should rather be outside its scope, such that the
 188   punctuation does not get underlines.  This is not trivial to
 189   implement because .%T then needs some features of in_line_eoln() -
 190   slurp all arguments into one single text element - and one feature
 191   of in_line() - put trailing punctuation out of scope.
 192   Found in mount_nfs(8) and exports(5), search for "Appendix".
 193
 194 - in enclosures, mandoc sometimes fancies a bogus end of sentence
 195   reminded by jmc@  Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:13:39 +0059
 196
 197 ************************************************************************
 198 * formatting issues: gratuitous differences
 199 ************************************************************************
 200
 201 - .Rv (and probably .Ex) print different text if an `Nm' has been named
 202   or not (run a manual without `Nm blah' to see this).  I'm not sure
 203   that this exists in the wild, but it's still an error.
 204
 205 - In .Bl -bullet, the groff bullet is "+\b+\bo\bo", the mandoc bullet
 206   is just "o\bo".
 207   see for example OpenBSD ksh(1)
 208
 209 - The characters "|" and "\*(Ba" should never be bold,
 210   not even in the middle of a word, e.g. ".Cm b\*(Bac" in
 211   "mknod [-m mode] name b|c major minor"
 212   in OpenBSD ksh(1)
 213
 214 - A bogus .Pp between two .It must not produce a double blank line,
 215   see between -R and -r in OpenBSD rm(1), before "update" in mount(8),
 216   or in DIAGNOSTICS in init(8), or before "is always true" in ksh(1).
 217   The same happens with .Pp just before .El, see bgpd.conf(5).
 218   Also have `It' complain if `Pp' is invoked at certain times (not
 219   -compact?).
 220
 221 - .Pp between two .It in .Bl -column should produce one,
 222   not two blank lines, see e.g. login.conf(5).
 223   reported by jmc@  Sun, 17 Apr 2011 14:04:58 +0059
 224   reported again by sthen@  Wed, 18 Jan 2012 02:09:39 +0000 (UTC)
 225
 226 - If the *first* line after .It is .Pp, break the line right after
 227   the tag, do not pad with space characters before breaking.
 228   See the description of the a, c, and i commands in sed(1).
 229
 230 - If the first line after .It is .D1, do not assert a blank line
 231   in between, see for example tmux(1).
 232   reported by nicm@  13 Jan 2011 00:18:57 +0000
 233
 234 - .Nx 1.0a
 235   should be "NetBSD 1.0A", not "NetBSD 1.0a",
 236   see OpenBSD ccdconfig(8).
 237
 238 - In .Bl -tag, if a tag exceeds the right margin and must be continued
 239   on the next line, it must be indented by -width, not width+1;
 240   see "rule block|pass" in OpenBSD ifconfig(8).
 241
 242 - When the -width string contains macros, the macros must be rendered
 243   before measuring the width, for example
 244     .Bl -tag -width ".Dv message"
 245   in magic(5), located in src/usr.bin/file, is the same
 246   as -width 7n, not -width 11n.
 247   The same applies to .Bl -column column widths;
 248   reported again by Nicolas Joly Thu, 1 Mar 2012 13:41:26 +0100 via wiz@ 5 Mar
 249
 250 - The \& zero-width character counts as output.
 251   That is, when it is alone on a line between two .Pp,
 252   we want three blank lines, not two as in mandoc.
 253
 254 - When .Fn arguments exceed one output line, all but the first
 255   should be indented, see e.g. rpc(3);
 256   reported by jmc@ on discuss@  Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:48:33 +0100
 257   reported again by Nicolas Joly via wiz@  Sun, 18 Sep 2011 18:24:40 +0200
 258   Also, we don't want to break the line within the argument of:
 259   .Fa "chtype tl"
 260
 261 - .Ns should work when called at the end of an input line, see
 262   the following code in vi(1):
 263     .It Xo
 264     .Op Ar line
 265     .Cm a Ns Op Cm ppend Ns
 266     .Op Cm !\&
 267     .Xc
 268     The input text is appended after the specified line.
 269
 270 - Header lines of excessive length:
 271   Port OpenBSD man_term.c rev. 1.25 to mdoc_term.c
 272   and document it in mdoc(7) and man(7) COMPATIBILITY
 273   found while talking to Chris Bennett
 274
 275 - In man(7), the sequence
 276     .HP
 277     one line of regular text
 278     .SH
 279   should not produce two blank lines before the .SH,
 280   see for example named-checkconf(8).
 281
 282 - In man(7), the sequence
 283     .SH HEADER
 284     <blank line>
 285     .PP
 286     regular text
 287   should not produce any blank lines between the header and the text,
 288   see for example rsync(1).
 289   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 290
 291 - In man(7), the sequence
 292     regular text
 293     .IP
 294     .IP "tag"
 295     indented text
 296   should produce one, not four blank lines between the regular text
 297   and the tag, see for example rsync(1).
 298   Likewise,
 299     regular text
 300     .IP
 301     indented text
 302   should produce one, not two blank lines in between, and
 303     regular text
 304     .IP
 305     .RS
 306     .IP tag
 307     indented text
 308   should produce one, not three blank lines.
 309   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 310
 311 - trailing whitespace must be ignored even when followed by a font escape,
 312   see for example
 313     makes
 314     \fBdig \fR
 315     operate in batch mode
 316   in dig(1).
 317
 318 ************************************************************************
 319 * performance issues
 320 ************************************************************************
 321
 322 Several areas can be cleaned up to make mandoc even faster.  These are
 323
 324 - improve hashing mechanism for macros (quite important: performance)
 325
 326 - improve hashing mechanism for characters (not as important)
 327
 328 - the PDF file is HUGE: this can be reduced by using relative offsets
 329
 330 - instead of re-initialising the roff predefined-strings set before each
 331   parse, create a read-only version the first time and copy it
 332
 333 ************************************************************************
 334 * structural issues
 335 ************************************************************************
 336
 337 - We use the input line number at several places to distinguish
 338   same-line from different-line input.  That plainly doesn't work
 339   with user-defined macros, leading to random breakage.
 340
 341 - Find better ways to prevent endless loops
 342   in roff(7) macro and string expansion.
 343
 344 - Finish cleanup of date handling.
 345   Decide which formats should be recognized where.
 346   Update both mdoc(7) and man(7) documentation.
 347   Triggered by  Tim van der Molen  Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:30:45 +0100