TODO

   1 ************************************************************************
   2 * Official mandoc TODO.
   3 * $Id: TODO,v 1.86 2011/01/25 16:20:24 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 mdoc(7) parser should handle `\.' as punctuation:
  14     .Ql .if ${VAR} op something \.
  15   should produce
  16     `.if ${VAR} op something'.
  17   not
  18     `.if ${VAR} op something .'
  19   as seen in make(1).
  20   To escape the dot, one would use `\&.'.
  21
  22 - the roff parser doesn't tolerate additional characters between
  23   a macro and the \} terminating a conditional block, e.g.
  24   .if n \{
  25   .br \}
  26   reported by ulrich spoerlein  Tue, 19 Oct 2010 20:39:50 +0200
  27
  28 ************************************************************************
  29 * formatter bugs
  30 ************************************************************************
  31
  32 ************************************************************************
  33 * missing features
  34 ************************************************************************
  35
  36 --- missing roff features ----------------------------------------------
  37
  38 - .ad (adjust margins)
  39   .ad l -- adjust left margin only (flush left)
  40   .ad r -- adjust right margin only (flush right)
  41   .ad c -- center text on line
  42   .ad b -- adjust both margins (alias: .ad n)
  43   .na   -- temporarily disable adjustment without changing the mode
  44   .ad   -- re-enable adjustment without changing the mode
  45   Adjustment mode is ignored while in no-fill mode (.nf).
  46
  47 - .it (line traps) occur in mysql(1), yasm_arch(7)
  48   generated by DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.71.1 <http://docbook.sf.net/>
  49   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:48:18 -0500
  50
  51 - .ns (no-space mode) occurs in xine-config(1)
  52   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
  53
  54 - xloadimage(1) wants .ti (temporary indent), rep by naddy@
  55
  56 - .ta (tab settings) occurs in ircbug(1) and probably gnats(1)
  57   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:50:51 -0500
  58
  59 - pod2man expects `tr' to be implemented for \*(-- to work
  60
  61 - \c (interrupted text) occurs in chat(8)
  62
  63 --- missing mdoc features ----------------------------------------------
  64
  65 - fix bad block nesting involving multiple identical explicit blocks
  66   see the OpenBSD mdoc_macro.c 1.47 commit message
  67
  68 - .Bl -column .Xo support is missing
  69   ultimate goal:
  70   restore .Xr and .Dv to
  71   lib/libc/compat-43/sigvec.3
  72   lib/libc/gen/signal.3
  73   lib/libc/sys/sigaction.2
  74
  75 - edge case: decide how to deal with blk_full bad nesting, e.g.
  76   .Sh .Nm .Bk .Nm .Ek .Sh found by jmc@ in ssh-keygen(1)
  77   from jmc@  Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:10:32 +0100
  78
  79 - \\ is now implemented correctly
  80   * when defining strings and macros using .ds and .de
  81   * when parsing roff(7) and man(7) macro arguments
  82   It does not yet work in mdoc(7) macro arguments
  83   because libmdoc does not yet use mandoc_getarg().
  84   Also check what happens in plain text, it must be identical to \e.
  85
  86 - .Bd -filled should not be the same as .Bd -ragged, but align both
  87   the left and right margin.  In groff, it is implemented in terms
  88   of .ad b, which we don't have either.  Found in cksum(1).
  89
  90 - implement blank `Bl -column', such as
  91   .Bl -column
  92   .It foo Ta bar
  93   .El
  94
  95 - explicitly disallow nested `Bl -column', which would clobber internal
  96   flags defined for struct mdoc_macro
  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 --- missing man features -----------------------------------------------
 114
 115 - bashbug(1) complains "line scope broken" after
 116   .SM
 117   .B something
 118   should either just work or be a warning
 119   reported by naddy@
 120
 121 - groff an-ext.tmac macros (.UR, .UE) occur in xine(5)
 122   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
 123
 124 --- missing tbl features -----------------------------------------------
 125
 126 - implement basic non-parametric .de to support e.g. sox(1)
 127   reported by naddy@ Sat, 16 Oct 2010 23:51:57 +0200
 128   *** sox(1) still doesn't work, tbl(1) errors need investigation
 129
 130 --- missing misc features ----------------------------------------------
 131
 132 - clean up escape sequence handling, creating three classes:
 133   (1) fully implemented, or parsed and ignored without loss of content
 134   (2) unimplemented, potentially causing loss of content
 135       or serious mangling of formatting (e.g. \n) -> ERROR
 136       see textproc/mgdiff(1) for nice examples
 137   (3) undefined, just output the character -> perhaps WARNING
 138
 139 - The \t escape sequence is the same as a literal tab, see for example
 140   the ASCII table in hexdump(1) where
 141     .Bl -column \&000_nu \&001_so \&002_st \&003_et \&004_eo
 142     .It \&000\ nul\t001\ soh\t002\ stx\t003\ etx\t004\ eot\t005\ enq
 143   produces
 144     000 nul  001 soh  002 stx  003 etx  004 eot  005 enq
 145   and the example in oldrdist(1)
 146
 147 - look at pages generated from reStructeredText, e.g. devel/mercurial hg(1)
 148   These are a weird mixture of man(7) and custom autogenerated low-level
 149   roff stuff.  Figure out to what extent we can cope.
 150   For details, see http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
 151   noted by stsp@  Sat, 24 Apr 2010 09:17:55 +0200
 152   reminded by nicm@  Mon, 3 May 2010 09:52:41 +0100
 153
 154 - check compatibility with Plan9:
 155   http://swtch.com/usr/local/plan9/tmac/tmac.an
 156   http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/man7/man.html
 157   "Anthony J. Bentley" <anthonyjbentley@gmail.com> 28 Dec 2010 21:58:40 -0700
 158
 159 ************************************************************************
 160 * formatting issues: ugly output
 161 ************************************************************************
 162
 163 - double quotes inside double quotes are escaped by doubling them
 164   implement this in mdoc(7), too
 165   so far, we only have it in roff(7) and man(7)
 166   reminded by millert@  Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:29:52 -0500
 167
 168 - perl(1) SYNOPSIS looks bad; reported by deraadt@
 169   1) man(7) seems to need SYNOPSIS .Nm blocks, too
 170
 171 - In .Bl -column,
 172   .It Em Authentication<tab>Key Length
 173   ought to render "Key Length" with emphasis, too,
 174   see OpenBSD iked.conf(5).
 175
 176 - empty phrases in .Bl column produce too few blanks
 177   try e.g. .Bl -column It Ta Ta
 178   reported by millert Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:13:46 -0400
 179
 180 - .%T can have trailing punctuation.  Currently, it puts the trailing
 181   punctuation into a trailing MDOC_TEXT element inside its own scope.
 182   That element should rather be outside its scope, such that the
 183   punctuation does not get underlines.  This is not trivial to
 184   implement because .%T then needs some features of in_line_eoln() -
 185   slurp all arguments into one single text element - and one feature
 186   of in_line() - put trailing punctuation out of scope.
 187   Found in mount_nfs(8) and exports(5), search for "Appendix".
 188
 189 - in enclosures, mandoc sometimes fancies a bogus end of sentence
 190   reminded by jmc@  Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:13:39 +0059
 191
 192 ************************************************************************
 193 * formatting issues: gratuitious differences
 194 ************************************************************************
 195
 196 - .Rv (and probably .Ex) print different text if an `Nm' has been named
 197   or not (run a manual without `Nm blah' to see this).  I'm not sure
 198   that this exists in the wild, but it's still an error.
 199
 200 - In .Bl -bullet, the groff bullet is "+\b+\bo\bo", the mandoc bullet
 201   is just "o\bo".
 202   see for example OpenBSD ksh(1)
 203
 204 - The characters "|" and "\*(Ba" should never be bold,
 205   not even in the middle of a word, e.g. ".Cm b\*(Bac" in
 206   "mknod [-m mode] name b|c major minor"
 207   in OpenBSD ksh(1)
 208
 209 - A bogus .Pp between two .It must not produce a double blank line,
 210   see between -R and -r in OpenBSD rm(1), before "update" in mount(8),
 211   or in DIAGNOSTICS in init(8), or before "is always true" in ksh(1).
 212   The same happens with .Pp just before .El, see bgpd.conf(5).
 213   Also have `It' complain if `Pp' is invoked at certain times (not
 214   -compact?).
 215
 216 - If the *first* line after .It is .Pp, break the line right after
 217   the tag, do not pad with space characters before breaking.
 218   See the description of the a, c, and i commands in sed(1).
 219
 220 - If the first line after .It is .D1, do not assert a blank line
 221   in between, see for example tmux(1).
 222   reported by nicm@  13 Jan 2011 00:18:57 +0000
 223
 224 - .Nx 1.0a
 225   should be "NetBSD 1.0A", not "NetBSD 1.0a",
 226   see OpenBSD ccdconfig(8).
 227
 228 - In .Bl -tag, if a tag exceeds the right margin and must be continued
 229   on the next line, it must be indented by -width, not width+1;
 230   see "rule block|pass" in OpenBSD ifconfig(8).
 231
 232 - When the -width string contains macros, the macros must be rendered
 233   before measuring the width, for example
 234     .Bl -tag -width ".Dv message"
 235   in magic(5), located in src/usr.bin/file, is the same
 236   as -width 7n, not -width 11n.
 237
 238 - The \& zero-width character counts as output.
 239   That is, when it is alone on a line between two .Pp,
 240   we want three blank lines, not two as in mandoc.
 241
 242 - When .Fn arguments exceed one output line, all but the first
 243   should be indented, see e.g. rpc(3);
 244   reported by jmc@ on discuss@  Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:48:33 +0100
 245
 246 - .Ns should only be effective when called by another macro,
 247   not as a stand-alone macro at the beginning of a line;
 248   see for example the awk(1) SYNOPSIS.
 249
 250 - .Ns should work when called at the end of an input line, see
 251   the following code in vi(1):
 252     .It Xo
 253     .Op Ar line
 254     .Cm a Ns Op Cm ppend Ns
 255     .Op Cm !\&
 256     .Xc
 257     The input text is appended after the specified line.
 258
 259 - Header lines of excessive length:
 260   Port OpenBSD man_term.c rev. 1.25 to mdoc_term.c
 261   and document it in mdoc(7) and man(7) COMPATIBILITY
 262   found while talking to Chris Bennett
 263
 264 - In man(7), the sequence
 265     .HP
 266     one line of regular text
 267     .SH
 268   should not produce two blank lines before the .SH,
 269   see for example named-checkconf(8).
 270
 271 - In man(7), the sequence
 272     regular text
 273     .RS
 274     .IP
 275   should have a blank line between the text and the beginning of the
 276   indented paragraph, see for example sudo(1).
 277
 278 - At least sometimes, .sp is ignored right after .SH; see named.conf(5).
 279
 280 - trailing whitespace must be ignored even when followed by a font escape,
 281   see for example
 282     makes
 283     \fBdig \fR
 284     operate in batch mode
 285   in dig(1).
 286
 287 ************************************************************************
 288 * error reporting issues
 289 ************************************************************************
 290
 291 ************************************************************************
 292 * performance issues
 293 ************************************************************************
 294
 295 Several areas can be cleaned up to make mandoc even faster.  These are
 296
 297 - improve hashing mechanism for macros (quite important: performance)
 298
 299 - improve hashing mechanism for characters (not as important)
 300
 301 - the PDF file is HUGE: this can be reduced by using relative offsets
 302
 303 ************************************************************************
 304 * structural issues
 305 ************************************************************************
 306
 307 - Find better ways to prevent endless loops
 308   in roff(7) macro and string expansion.
 309