TODO

   1 ************************************************************************
   2 * Official mandoc TODO.
   3 * $Id: TODO,v 1.149 2013/06/01 05:56:44 schwarze Exp $
   4 ************************************************************************
   5
   6 ************************************************************************
   7 * crashes
   8 ************************************************************************
   9
  10 None known right now.
  11
  12 ************************************************************************
  13 * missing features
  14 ************************************************************************
  15
  16 --- missing roff features ----------------------------------------------
  17
  18 - roff.c should treat \n(.H>23 and \n(.V>19 in the pod2man(1)
  19   preamble as true, see for example AUTHORS in MooseX::Getopt.3p
  20   reported by Andreas Voegele <mail at andreasvoegele dot com>
  21   Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:34:47 +0100 on ports@
  22
  23 - .ad (adjust margins)
  24   .ad l -- adjust left margin only (flush left)
  25   .ad r -- adjust right margin only (flush right)
  26   .ad c -- center text on line
  27   .ad b -- adjust both margins (alias: .ad n)
  28   .na   -- temporarily disable adjustment without changing the mode
  29   .ad   -- re-enable adjustment without changing the mode
  30   Adjustment mode is ignored while in no-fill mode (.nf).
  31
  32 - .it (line traps) occur in mysql(1), yasm_arch(7)
  33   generated by DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.71.1 <http://docbook.sf.net/>
  34   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:48:18 -0500
  35
  36 - .ns (no-space mode) occurs in xine-config(1)
  37   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
  38
  39 - xloadimage(1) wants .ti (temporary indent), rep by naddy@
  40   reported again by bentley@ in nmh(1)  Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:38:28 -0600
  41   also uses .ce (center N lines) and .fc (field control)
  42
  43 - .ta (tab settings) occurs in ircbug(1) and probably gnats(1)
  44   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:50:51 -0500
  45
  46 - \c (interrupted text) should prevent the line break
  47   even inside .Bd literal; that occurs in chat(8)
  48
  49 - using undefined strings or macros defines them to be empty
  50   wl@  Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:37:01 +0000
  51
  52 --- missing mdoc features ----------------------------------------------
  53
  54 - fix bad block nesting involving multiple identical explicit blocks
  55   see the OpenBSD mdoc_macro.c 1.47 commit message
  56
  57 - .Bl -column .Xo support is missing
  58   ultimate goal:
  59   restore .Xr and .Dv to
  60   lib/libc/compat-43/sigvec.3
  61   lib/libc/gen/signal.3
  62   lib/libc/sys/sigaction.2
  63
  64 - edge case: decide how to deal with blk_full bad nesting, e.g.
  65   .Sh .Nm .Bk .Nm .Ek .Sh found by jmc@ in ssh-keygen(1)
  66   from jmc@  Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:10:32 +0100
  67
  68 - \\ is now implemented correctly
  69   * when defining strings and macros using .ds and .de
  70   * when parsing roff(7) and man(7) macro arguments
  71   It does not yet work in mdoc(7) macro arguments
  72   because libmdoc does not yet use mandoc_getarg().
  73   Also check what happens in plain text, it must be identical to \e.
  74
  75 - .Bd -filled should not be the same as .Bd -ragged, but align both
  76   the left and right margin.  In groff, it is implemented in terms
  77   of .ad b, which we don't have either.  Found in cksum(1).
  78
  79 - implement blank `Bl -column', such as
  80   .Bl -column
  81   .It foo Ta bar
  82   .El
  83
  84 - explicitly disallow nested `Bl -column', which would clobber internal
  85   flags defined for struct mdoc_macro
  86
  87 - In .Bl -column .It, the end of the line probably has to be regarded
  88   as an implicit .Ta, if there could be one, see the following mildly
  89   ugly code from login.conf(5):
  90     .Bl -column minpasswordlen program xetcxmotd
  91     .It path Ta path Ta value of Dv _PATH_DEFPATH
  92     .br
  93     Default search path.
  94   reported by Michal Mazurek <akfaew at jasminek dot net>
  95   via jmc@ Thu, 7 Apr 2011 16:00:53 +0059
  96
  97 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, punctuation is handled like normal
  98   text, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Fl x . Ta ...' should give "-x -."
  99
 100 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, TERMP_IGNDELIM handling by `Pf'
 101   is not safe, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Pf a b .' gives "ab."
 102   but should give "ab ."
 103
 104 - set a meaningful default if no `Bl' list type is assigned
 105
 106 - have a blank `It' head for `Bl -tag' not puke
 107
 108 - prohibit `Nm' from having non-text HEAD children
 109   (e.g., NetBSD mDNSShared/dns-sd.1)
 110   (mdoc_html.c and mdoc_term.c `Nm' handlers can be slightly simplified)
 111
 112 - When there is free text in the SYNOPSIS and that free text contains
 113   the .Nm macro, groff somehow understands to treat the .Nm as an in-line
 114   macro, while mandoc treats it as a block macro and breaks the line.
 115   No idea how the logic for distinguishing in-line and block instances
 116   should be, needs investigation.
 117   uqs@  Thu, 2 Jun 2011 11:03:51 +0200
 118   uqs@  Thu, 2 Jun 2011 11:33:35 +0200
 119
 120 --- missing man features -----------------------------------------------
 121
 122 - groff an-ext.tmac macros (.UR, .UE) occur in xine(5)
 123   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
 124   also occur in freeciv-client(6) freeciv-server(6) freeciv-modpack(6)
 125   reported by bentley@  Tue, 30 Oct 2012 01:05:57 -0600
 126
 127 - -T[x]html doesn't stipulate non-collapsing spaces in literal mode
 128
 129 --- missing tbl features -----------------------------------------------
 130
 131 - implement basic non-parametric .de to support e.g. sox(1)
 132   reported by naddy@ Sat, 16 Oct 2010 23:51:57 +0200
 133   *** sox(1) still doesn't work, tbl(1) errors need investigation
 134
 135 - allow standalone `.' to be interpreted as an end-of-layout
 136   delimiter instead of being thrown away as a no-op roff line
 137   reported by Yuri Pankov, Wed 18 May 2011 11:34:59 CEST
 138
 139 --- missing misc features ----------------------------------------------
 140
 141 - clean up escape sequence handling, creating three classes:
 142   (1) fully implemented, or parsed and ignored without loss of content
 143   (2) unimplemented, potentially causing loss of content
 144       or serious mangling of formatting (e.g. \n) -> ERROR
 145       see textproc/mgdiff(1) for nice examples
 146   (3) undefined, just output the character -> perhaps WARNING
 147
 148 - The \t escape sequence is the same as a literal tab, see for example
 149   the ASCII table in hexdump(1) where
 150     .Bl -column \&000_nu \&001_so \&002_st \&003_et \&004_eo
 151     .It \&000\ nul\t001\ soh\t002\ stx\t003\ etx\t004\ eot\t005\ enq
 152   produces
 153     000 nul  001 soh  002 stx  003 etx  004 eot  005 enq
 154   and the example in oldrdist(1)
 155
 156 - look at pages generated from reStructeredText, e.g. devel/mercurial hg(1)
 157   These are a weird mixture of man(7) and custom autogenerated low-level
 158   roff stuff.  Figure out to what extent we can cope.
 159   For details, see http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
 160   noted by stsp@  Sat, 24 Apr 2010 09:17:55 +0200
 161   reminded by nicm@  Mon, 3 May 2010 09:52:41 +0100
 162
 163 - check compatibility with Plan9:
 164   http://swtch.com/usr/local/plan9/tmac/tmac.an
 165   http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/man7/man.html
 166   "Anthony J. Bentley" <anthonyjbentley@gmail.com> 28 Dec 2010 21:58:40 -0700
 167
 168 ************************************************************************
 169 * formatting issues: ugly output
 170 ************************************************************************
 171
 172 - a column list with blank `Ta' cells triggers a spurrious
 173   start-with-whitespace printing of a newline
 174
 175 - double quotes inside double quotes are escaped by doubling them
 176   implement this in mdoc(7), too
 177   so far, we only have it in roff(7) and man(7)
 178   reminded by millert@  Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:29:52 -0500
 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   reported again Nicolas Joly via wiz@ Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:20:00 +0200
 185
 186 - empty phrases in .Bl column produce too few blanks
 187   try e.g. .Bl -column It Ta Ta
 188   reported by millert Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:13:46 -0400
 189
 190 - .%T can have trailing punctuation.  Currently, it puts the trailing
 191   punctuation into a trailing MDOC_TEXT element inside its own scope.
 192   That element should rather be outside its scope, such that the
 193   punctuation does not get underlines.  This is not trivial to
 194   implement because .%T then needs some features of in_line_eoln() -
 195   slurp all arguments into one single text element - and one feature
 196   of in_line() - put trailing punctuation out of scope.
 197   Found in mount_nfs(8) and exports(5), search for "Appendix".
 198
 199 - Trailing punctuation after .%T triggers EOS spacing, at least
 200   outside .Rs (eek!).  Simply setting ARGSFL_DELIM for .%T is not
 201   the right solution, it sends mandoc into an endless loop.
 202   reported by Nicolas Joly  Sat, 17 Nov 2012 11:49:54 +0100
 203
 204 - in enclosures, mandoc sometimes fancies a bogus end of sentence
 205   reminded by jmc@  Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:13:39 +0059
 206
 207 - formatting /usr/local/man/man1/latex2man.1 with groff and mandoc
 208   reveals lots of bugs both in groff and mandoc...
 209   reported by bentley@  Wed, 22 May 2013 23:49:30 -0600
 210
 211 ************************************************************************
 212 * formatting issues: gratuitous differences
 213 ************************************************************************
 214
 215 - .Rv (and probably .Ex) print different text if an `Nm' has been named
 216   or not (run a manual without `Nm blah' to see this).  I'm not sure
 217   that this exists in the wild, but it's still an error.
 218
 219 - In .Bl -bullet, the groff bullet is "+\b+\bo\bo", the mandoc bullet
 220   is just "o\bo".
 221   see for example OpenBSD ksh(1)
 222
 223 - .Pp between two .It in .Bl -column should produce one,
 224   not two blank lines, see e.g. login.conf(5).
 225   reported by jmc@  Sun, 17 Apr 2011 14:04:58 +0059
 226   reported again by sthen@  Wed, 18 Jan 2012 02:09:39 +0000 (UTC)
 227
 228 - If the *first* line after .It is .Pp, break the line right after
 229   the tag, do not pad with space characters before breaking.
 230   See the description of the a, c, and i commands in sed(1).
 231
 232 - If the first line after .It is .D1, do not assert a blank line
 233   in between, see for example tmux(1).
 234   reported by nicm@  13 Jan 2011 00:18:57 +0000
 235
 236 - Trailing punctuation after .It should trigger EOS spacing.
 237   reported by Nicolas Joly  Sat, 17 Nov 2012 11:49:54 +0100
 238   Probably, this should be fixed somewhere in termp_it_pre(), not sure.
 239
 240 - .Nx 1.0a
 241   should be "NetBSD 1.0A", not "NetBSD 1.0a",
 242   see OpenBSD ccdconfig(8).
 243
 244 - In .Bl -tag, if a tag exceeds the right margin and must be continued
 245   on the next line, it must be indented by -width, not width+1;
 246   see "rule block|pass" in OpenBSD ifconfig(8).
 247
 248 - When the -width string contains macros, the macros must be rendered
 249   before measuring the width, for example
 250     .Bl -tag -width ".Dv message"
 251   in magic(5), located in src/usr.bin/file, is the same
 252   as -width 7n, not -width 11n.
 253   The same applies to .Bl -column column widths;
 254   reported again by Nicolas Joly Thu, 1 Mar 2012 13:41:26 +0100 via wiz@ 5 Mar
 255
 256 - The \& zero-width character counts as output.
 257   That is, when it is alone on a line between two .Pp,
 258   we want three blank lines, not two as in mandoc.
 259
 260 - When .Fn arguments exceed one output line, all but the first
 261   should be indented, see e.g. rpc(3);
 262   reported by jmc@ on discuss@  Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:48:33 +0100
 263   reported again by Nicolas Joly via wiz@  Sun, 18 Sep 2011 18:24:40 +0200
 264   Also, we don't want to break the line within the argument of:
 265   .Fa "chtype tl"
 266
 267 - Header lines of excessive length:
 268   Port OpenBSD man_term.c rev. 1.25 to mdoc_term.c
 269   and document it in mdoc(7) and man(7) COMPATIBILITY
 270   found while talking to Chris Bennett
 271
 272 - trailing whitespace must be ignored even when followed by a font escape,
 273   see for example
 274     makes
 275     \fBdig \fR
 276     operate in batch mode
 277   in dig(1).
 278
 279 ************************************************************************
 280 * performance issues
 281 ************************************************************************
 282
 283 Several areas can be cleaned up to make mandoc even faster.  These are
 284
 285 - improve hashing mechanism for macros (quite important: performance)
 286
 287 - improve hashing mechanism for characters (not as important)
 288
 289 - the PDF file is HUGE: this can be reduced by using relative offsets
 290
 291 - instead of re-initialising the roff predefined-strings set before each
 292   parse, create a read-only version the first time and copy it
 293
 294 ************************************************************************
 295 * structural issues
 296 ************************************************************************
 297
 298 - We use the input line number at several places to distinguish
 299   same-line from different-line input.  That plainly doesn't work
 300   with user-defined macros, leading to random breakage.
 301
 302 - Find better ways to prevent endless loops
 303   in roff(7) macro and string expansion.
 304
 305 - Finish cleanup of date handling.
 306   Decide which formats should be recognized where.
 307   Update both mdoc(7) and man(7) documentation.
 308   Triggered by  Tim van der Molen  Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:30:45 +0100