TODO

   1 ************************************************************************
   2 * Official mandoc TODO.
   3 * $Id: TODO,v 1.115 2011/06/30 08:05:13 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 ************************************************************************
  14 * formatter bugs
  15 ************************************************************************
  16
  17 - tbl(7): Horizontal and vertical lines are formatted badly:
  18   With the box option, there is too much white space at the end of cells.
  19   Horizontal lines from "=" lines are a bit too long.
  20   yuri dot pankov at gmail dot com  Thu, 14 Apr 2011 05:45:26 +0400
  21
  22 ************************************************************************
  23 * missing features
  24 ************************************************************************
  25
  26 --- missing roff features ----------------------------------------------
  27
  28 - .ad (adjust margins)
  29   .ad l -- adjust left margin only (flush left)
  30   .ad r -- adjust right margin only (flush right)
  31   .ad c -- center text on line
  32   .ad b -- adjust both margins (alias: .ad n)
  33   .na   -- temporarily disable adjustment without changing the mode
  34   .ad   -- re-enable adjustment without changing the mode
  35   Adjustment mode is ignored while in no-fill mode (.nf).
  36
  37 - .it (line traps) occur in mysql(1), yasm_arch(7)
  38   generated by DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.71.1 <http://docbook.sf.net/>
  39   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:48:18 -0500
  40
  41 - .ns (no-space mode) occurs in xine-config(1)
  42   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
  43
  44 - xloadimage(1) wants .ti (temporary indent), rep by naddy@
  45
  46 - .ta (tab settings) occurs in ircbug(1) and probably gnats(1)
  47   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:50:51 -0500
  48
  49 - pod2man expects `tr' to be implemented for \*(-- to work
  50
  51 - \c (interrupted text) occurs in chat(8)
  52
  53 --- missing mdoc features ----------------------------------------------
  54
  55 - fix bad block nesting involving multiple identical explicit blocks
  56   see the OpenBSD mdoc_macro.c 1.47 commit message
  57
  58 - .Bl -column .Xo support is missing
  59   ultimate goal:
  60   restore .Xr and .Dv to
  61   lib/libc/compat-43/sigvec.3
  62   lib/libc/gen/signal.3
  63   lib/libc/sys/sigaction.2
  64
  65 - edge case: decide how to deal with blk_full bad nesting, e.g.
  66   .Sh .Nm .Bk .Nm .Ek .Sh found by jmc@ in ssh-keygen(1)
  67   from jmc@  Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:10:32 +0100
  68
  69 - \\ is now implemented correctly
  70   * when defining strings and macros using .ds and .de
  71   * when parsing roff(7) and man(7) macro arguments
  72   It does not yet work in mdoc(7) macro arguments
  73   because libmdoc does not yet use mandoc_getarg().
  74   Also check what happens in plain text, it must be identical to \e.
  75
  76 - .Bd -filled should not be the same as .Bd -ragged, but align both
  77   the left and right margin.  In groff, it is implemented in terms
  78   of .ad b, which we don't have either.  Found in cksum(1).
  79
  80 - implement blank `Bl -column', such as
  81   .Bl -column
  82   .It foo Ta bar
  83   .El
  84
  85 - explicitly disallow nested `Bl -column', which would clobber internal
  86   flags defined for struct mdoc_macro
  87
  88 - In .Bl -column .It, the end of the line probably has to be regarded
  89   as an implicit .Ta, if there could be one, see the following mildly
  90   ugly code from login.conf(5):
  91     .Bl -column minpasswordlen program xetcxmotd
  92     .It path Ta path Ta value of Dv _PATH_DEFPATH
  93     .br
  94     Default search path.
  95   reported by Michal Mazurek <akfaew at jasminek dot net>
  96   via jmc@ Thu, 7 Apr 2011 16:00:53 +0059
  97
  98 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, punctuation is handled like normal
  99   text, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Fl x . Ta ...' should give "-x -."
 100
 101 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, TERMP_IGNDELIM handling by `Pf'
 102   is not safe, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Pf a b .' gives "ab."
 103   but should give "ab ."
 104
 105 - set a meaningful default if no `Bl' list type is assigned
 106
 107 - have a blank `It' head for `Bl -tag' not puke
 108
 109 - prohibit `Nm' from having non-text HEAD children
 110   (e.g., NetBSD mDNSShared/dns-sd.1)
 111   (mdoc_html.c and mdoc_term.c `Nm' handlers can be slightly simplified)
 112
 113 - When there is free text in the SYNOPSIS and that free text contains
 114   the .Nm macro, groff somehow understands to treat the .Nm as an in-line
 115   macro, while mandoc treats it as a block macro and breaks the line.
 116   No idea how the logic for distinguishing in-line and block instances
 117   should be, needs investigation.
 118   uqs@  Thu, 2 Jun 2011 11:03:51 +0200
 119   uqs@  Thu, 2 Jun 2011 11:33:35 +0200
 120
 121 --- missing man features -----------------------------------------------
 122
 123 - groff an-ext.tmac macros (.UR, .UE) occur in xine(5)
 124   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
 125
 126 --- missing tbl features -----------------------------------------------
 127
 128 - implement basic non-parametric .de to support e.g. sox(1)
 129   reported by naddy@ Sat, 16 Oct 2010 23:51:57 +0200
 130   *** sox(1) still doesn't work, tbl(1) errors need investigation
 131
 132 - allow standalone `.' to be interpreted as an end-of-layout
 133   delimiter instead of being thrown away as a no-op roff line
 134   reported by Yuri Pankov, Wed 18 May 2011 11:34:59 CEST
 135
 136 --- missing misc features ----------------------------------------------
 137
 138 - clean up escape sequence handling, creating three classes:
 139   (1) fully implemented, or parsed and ignored without loss of content
 140   (2) unimplemented, potentially causing loss of content
 141       or serious mangling of formatting (e.g. \n) -> ERROR
 142       see textproc/mgdiff(1) for nice examples
 143   (3) undefined, just output the character -> perhaps WARNING
 144
 145 - The \t escape sequence is the same as a literal tab, see for example
 146   the ASCII table in hexdump(1) where
 147     .Bl -column \&000_nu \&001_so \&002_st \&003_et \&004_eo
 148     .It \&000\ nul\t001\ soh\t002\ stx\t003\ etx\t004\ eot\t005\ enq
 149   produces
 150     000 nul  001 soh  002 stx  003 etx  004 eot  005 enq
 151   and the example in oldrdist(1)
 152
 153 - look at pages generated from reStructeredText, e.g. devel/mercurial hg(1)
 154   These are a weird mixture of man(7) and custom autogenerated low-level
 155   roff stuff.  Figure out to what extent we can cope.
 156   For details, see http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
 157   noted by stsp@  Sat, 24 Apr 2010 09:17:55 +0200
 158   reminded by nicm@  Mon, 3 May 2010 09:52:41 +0100
 159
 160 - check compatibility with Plan9:
 161   http://swtch.com/usr/local/plan9/tmac/tmac.an
 162   http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/man7/man.html
 163   "Anthony J. Bentley" <anthonyjbentley@gmail.com> 28 Dec 2010 21:58:40 -0700
 164
 165 ************************************************************************
 166 * formatting issues: ugly output
 167 ************************************************************************
 168
 169 - a column list with blank `Ta' cells triggers a spurrious
 170   start-with-whitespace printing of a newline
 171
 172 - double quotes inside double quotes are escaped by doubling them
 173   implement this in mdoc(7), too
 174   so far, we only have it in roff(7) and man(7)
 175   reminded by millert@  Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:29:52 -0500
 176
 177 - perl(1) SYNOPSIS looks bad; reported by deraadt@
 178   1) man(7) seems to need SYNOPSIS .Nm blocks, too
 179
 180 - In .Bl -column,
 181   .It Em Authentication<tab>Key Length
 182   ought to render "Key Length" with emphasis, too,
 183   see OpenBSD iked.conf(5).
 184
 185 - empty phrases in .Bl column produce too few blanks
 186   try e.g. .Bl -column It Ta Ta
 187   reported by millert Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:13:46 -0400
 188
 189 - .%T can have trailing punctuation.  Currently, it puts the trailing
 190   punctuation into a trailing MDOC_TEXT element inside its own scope.
 191   That element should rather be outside its scope, such that the
 192   punctuation does not get underlines.  This is not trivial to
 193   implement because .%T then needs some features of in_line_eoln() -
 194   slurp all arguments into one single text element - and one feature
 195   of in_line() - put trailing punctuation out of scope.
 196   Found in mount_nfs(8) and exports(5), search for "Appendix".
 197
 198 - in enclosures, mandoc sometimes fancies a bogus end of sentence
 199   reminded by jmc@  Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:13:39 +0059
 200
 201 ************************************************************************
 202 * formatting issues: gratuitous differences
 203 ************************************************************************
 204
 205 - .Rv (and probably .Ex) print different text if an `Nm' has been named
 206   or not (run a manual without `Nm blah' to see this).  I'm not sure
 207   that this exists in the wild, but it's still an error.
 208
 209 - In .Bl -bullet, the groff bullet is "+\b+\bo\bo", the mandoc bullet
 210   is just "o\bo".
 211   see for example OpenBSD ksh(1)
 212
 213 - The characters "|" and "\*(Ba" should never be bold,
 214   not even in the middle of a word, e.g. ".Cm b\*(Bac" in
 215   "mknod [-m mode] name b|c major minor"
 216   in OpenBSD ksh(1)
 217
 218 - A bogus .Pp between two .It must not produce a double blank line,
 219   see between -R and -r in OpenBSD rm(1), before "update" in mount(8),
 220   or in DIAGNOSTICS in init(8), or before "is always true" in ksh(1).
 221   The same happens with .Pp just before .El, see bgpd.conf(5).
 222   Also have `It' complain if `Pp' is invoked at certain times (not
 223   -compact?).
 224
 225 - .Pp between two .It in .Bl -column should produce one,
 226   not two blank lines, see e.g. login.conf(5).
 227   reported by jmc@  Sun, 17 Apr 2011 14:04:58 +0059
 228
 229 - If the *first* line after .It is .Pp, break the line right after
 230   the tag, do not pad with space characters before breaking.
 231   See the description of the a, c, and i commands in sed(1).
 232
 233 - If the first line after .It is .D1, do not assert a blank line
 234   in between, see for example tmux(1).
 235   reported by nicm@  13 Jan 2011 00:18:57 +0000
 236
 237 - .Nx 1.0a
 238   should be "NetBSD 1.0A", not "NetBSD 1.0a",
 239   see OpenBSD ccdconfig(8).
 240
 241 - In .Bl -tag, if a tag exceeds the right margin and must be continued
 242   on the next line, it must be indented by -width, not width+1;
 243   see "rule block|pass" in OpenBSD ifconfig(8).
 244
 245 - When the -width string contains macros, the macros must be rendered
 246   before measuring the width, for example
 247     .Bl -tag -width ".Dv message"
 248   in magic(5), located in src/usr.bin/file, is the same
 249   as -width 7n, not -width 11n.
 250
 251 - The \& zero-width character counts as output.
 252   That is, when it is alone on a line between two .Pp,
 253   we want three blank lines, not two as in mandoc.
 254
 255 - When .Fn arguments exceed one output line, all but the first
 256   should be indented, see e.g. rpc(3);
 257   reported by jmc@ on discuss@  Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:48:33 +0100
 258
 259 - .Ns should work when called at the end of an input line, see
 260   the following code in vi(1):
 261     .It Xo
 262     .Op Ar line
 263     .Cm a Ns Op Cm ppend Ns
 264     .Op Cm !\&
 265     .Xc
 266     The input text is appended after the specified line.
 267
 268 - Header lines of excessive length:
 269   Port OpenBSD man_term.c rev. 1.25 to mdoc_term.c
 270   and document it in mdoc(7) and man(7) COMPATIBILITY
 271   found while talking to Chris Bennett
 272
 273 - In man(7), the sequence
 274     .HP
 275     one line of regular text
 276     .SH
 277   should not produce two blank lines before the .SH,
 278   see for example named-checkconf(8).
 279
 280 - In man(7), the sequence
 281     .SH HEADER
 282     <blank line>
 283     .PP
 284     regular text
 285   should not produce any blank lines between the header and the text,
 286   see for example rsync(1).
 287   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 288
 289 - In man(7), the sequence
 290     regular text
 291     .IP
 292     .IP "tag"
 293     indented text
 294   should produce one, not four blank lines between the regular text
 295   and the tag, see for example rsync(1).
 296   Likewise,
 297     regular text
 298     .IP
 299     indented text
 300   should produce one, not two blank lines in between, and
 301     regular text
 302     .IP
 303     .RS
 304     .IP tag
 305     indented text
 306   should produce one, not three blank lines.
 307   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 308
 309 - trailing whitespace must be ignored even when followed by a font escape,
 310   see for example
 311     makes
 312     \fBdig \fR
 313     operate in batch mode
 314   in dig(1).
 315
 316 ************************************************************************
 317 * error reporting issues
 318 ************************************************************************
 319
 320 ************************************************************************
 321 * performance issues
 322 ************************************************************************
 323
 324 Several areas can be cleaned up to make mandoc even faster.  These are
 325
 326 - improve hashing mechanism for macros (quite important: performance)
 327
 328 - improve hashing mechanism for characters (not as important)
 329
 330 - the PDF file is HUGE: this can be reduced by using relative offsets
 331
 332 - instead of re-initialising the roff predefined-strings set before each
 333   parse, create a read-only version the first time and copy it
 334
 335 ************************************************************************
 336 * structural issues
 337 ************************************************************************
 338
 339 - Find better ways to prevent endless loops
 340   in roff(7) macro and string expansion.
 341
 342 - Finish cleanup of date handling.
 343   Decide which formats should be recognized where.
 344   Update both mdoc(7) and man(7) documentation.
 345   Triggered by  Tim van der Molen  Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:30:45 +0100