TODO

   1 ************************************************************************
   2 * Official mandoc TODO.
   3 * $Id: TODO,v 1.134 2012/06/05 21:29:26 schwarze 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 - .cc (change control character) occurs in sqlite3(1)
  27   reported by espie@  Sat, 14 Apr 2012 15:35:38 +0200
  28
  29 - .it (line traps) occur in mysql(1), yasm_arch(7)
  30   generated by DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.71.1 <http://docbook.sf.net/>
  31   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:48:18 -0500
  32
  33 - .ns (no-space mode) occurs in xine-config(1)
  34   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
  35
  36 - xloadimage(1) wants .ti (temporary indent), rep by naddy@
  37   reported again by bentley@ in nmh(1)  Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:38:28 -0600
  38   also uses .ce (center N lines) and .fc (field control)
  39
  40 - .ta (tab settings) occurs in ircbug(1) and probably gnats(1)
  41   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:50:51 -0500
  42
  43 - \c (interrupted text) should prevent the line break
  44   even inside .Bd literal; that occurs in chat(8)
  45
  46 - using undefined strings or macros defines them to be empty
  47   wl@  Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:37:01 +0000
  48
  49 --- missing mdoc features ----------------------------------------------
  50
  51 - fix bad block nesting involving multiple identical explicit blocks
  52   see the OpenBSD mdoc_macro.c 1.47 commit message
  53
  54 - .Bl -column .Xo support is missing
  55   ultimate goal:
  56   restore .Xr and .Dv to
  57   lib/libc/compat-43/sigvec.3
  58   lib/libc/gen/signal.3
  59   lib/libc/sys/sigaction.2
  60
  61 - edge case: decide how to deal with blk_full bad nesting, e.g.
  62   .Sh .Nm .Bk .Nm .Ek .Sh found by jmc@ in ssh-keygen(1)
  63   from jmc@  Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:10:32 +0100
  64
  65 - \\ is now implemented correctly
  66   * when defining strings and macros using .ds and .de
  67   * when parsing roff(7) and man(7) macro arguments
  68   It does not yet work in mdoc(7) macro arguments
  69   because libmdoc does not yet use mandoc_getarg().
  70   Also check what happens in plain text, it must be identical to \e.
  71
  72 - .Bd -filled should not be the same as .Bd -ragged, but align both
  73   the left and right margin.  In groff, it is implemented in terms
  74   of .ad b, which we don't have either.  Found in cksum(1).
  75
  76 - implement blank `Bl -column', such as
  77   .Bl -column
  78   .It foo Ta bar
  79   .El
  80
  81 - explicitly disallow nested `Bl -column', which would clobber internal
  82   flags defined for struct mdoc_macro
  83
  84 - In .Bl -column .It, the end of the line probably has to be regarded
  85   as an implicit .Ta, if there could be one, see the following mildly
  86   ugly code from login.conf(5):
  87     .Bl -column minpasswordlen program xetcxmotd
  88     .It path Ta path Ta value of Dv _PATH_DEFPATH
  89     .br
  90     Default search path.
  91   reported by Michal Mazurek <akfaew at jasminek dot net>
  92   via jmc@ Thu, 7 Apr 2011 16:00:53 +0059
  93
  94 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, punctuation is handled like normal
  95   text, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Fl x . Ta ...' should give "-x -."
  96
  97 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, TERMP_IGNDELIM handling by `Pf'
  98   is not safe, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Pf a b .' gives "ab."
  99   but should give "ab ."
 100
 101 - set a meaningful default if no `Bl' list type is assigned
 102
 103 - have a blank `It' head for `Bl -tag' not puke
 104
 105 - prohibit `Nm' from having non-text HEAD children
 106   (e.g., NetBSD mDNSShared/dns-sd.1)
 107   (mdoc_html.c and mdoc_term.c `Nm' handlers can be slightly simplified)
 108
 109 - When there is free text in the SYNOPSIS and that free text contains
 110   the .Nm macro, groff somehow understands to treat the .Nm as an in-line
 111   macro, while mandoc treats it as a block macro and breaks the line.
 112   No idea how the logic for distinguishing in-line and block instances
 113   should be, needs investigation.
 114   uqs@  Thu, 2 Jun 2011 11:03:51 +0200
 115   uqs@  Thu, 2 Jun 2011 11:33:35 +0200
 116
 117 --- missing man features -----------------------------------------------
 118
 119 - groff an-ext.tmac macros (.UR, .UE) occur in xine(5)
 120   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
 121
 122 - -T[x]html doesn't stipulate non-collapsing spaces in literal mode
 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 - allow standalone `.' to be interpreted as an end-of-layout
 131   delimiter instead of being thrown away as a no-op roff line
 132   reported by Yuri Pankov, Wed 18 May 2011 11:34:59 CEST
 133
 134 --- missing misc features ----------------------------------------------
 135
 136 - clean up escape sequence handling, creating three classes:
 137   (1) fully implemented, or parsed and ignored without loss of content
 138   (2) unimplemented, potentially causing loss of content
 139       or serious mangling of formatting (e.g. \n) -> ERROR
 140       see textproc/mgdiff(1) for nice examples
 141   (3) undefined, just output the character -> perhaps WARNING
 142
 143 - The \t escape sequence is the same as a literal tab, see for example
 144   the ASCII table in hexdump(1) where
 145     .Bl -column \&000_nu \&001_so \&002_st \&003_et \&004_eo
 146     .It \&000\ nul\t001\ soh\t002\ stx\t003\ etx\t004\ eot\t005\ enq
 147   produces
 148     000 nul  001 soh  002 stx  003 etx  004 eot  005 enq
 149   and the example in oldrdist(1)
 150
 151 - look at pages generated from reStructeredText, e.g. devel/mercurial hg(1)
 152   These are a weird mixture of man(7) and custom autogenerated low-level
 153   roff stuff.  Figure out to what extent we can cope.
 154   For details, see http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
 155   noted by stsp@  Sat, 24 Apr 2010 09:17:55 +0200
 156   reminded by nicm@  Mon, 3 May 2010 09:52:41 +0100
 157
 158 - check compatibility with Plan9:
 159   http://swtch.com/usr/local/plan9/tmac/tmac.an
 160   http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/man7/man.html
 161   "Anthony J. Bentley" <anthonyjbentley@gmail.com> 28 Dec 2010 21:58:40 -0700
 162
 163 ************************************************************************
 164 * formatting issues: ugly output
 165 ************************************************************************
 166
 167 - a column list with blank `Ta' cells triggers a spurrious
 168   start-with-whitespace printing of a newline
 169
 170 - double quotes inside double quotes are escaped by doubling them
 171   implement this in mdoc(7), too
 172   so far, we only have it in roff(7) and man(7)
 173   reminded by millert@  Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:29:52 -0500
 174
 175 - perl(1) SYNOPSIS looks bad; reported by deraadt@
 176   1) man(7) seems to need SYNOPSIS .Nm blocks, too
 177
 178 - In .Bl -column,
 179   .It Em Authentication<tab>Key Length
 180   ought to render "Key Length" with emphasis, too,
 181   see OpenBSD iked.conf(5).
 182   reported again Nicolas Joly via wiz@ Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:20:00 +0200
 183
 184 - empty phrases in .Bl column produce too few blanks
 185   try e.g. .Bl -column It Ta Ta
 186   reported by millert Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:13:46 -0400
 187
 188 - .%T can have trailing punctuation.  Currently, it puts the trailing
 189   punctuation into a trailing MDOC_TEXT element inside its own scope.
 190   That element should rather be outside its scope, such that the
 191   punctuation does not get underlines.  This is not trivial to
 192   implement because .%T then needs some features of in_line_eoln() -
 193   slurp all arguments into one single text element - and one feature
 194   of in_line() - put trailing punctuation out of scope.
 195   Found in mount_nfs(8) and exports(5), search for "Appendix".
 196
 197 - in enclosures, mandoc sometimes fancies a bogus end of sentence
 198   reminded by jmc@  Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:13:39 +0059
 199
 200 ************************************************************************
 201 * formatting issues: gratuitous differences
 202 ************************************************************************
 203
 204 - .Rv (and probably .Ex) print different text if an `Nm' has been named
 205   or not (run a manual without `Nm blah' to see this).  I'm not sure
 206   that this exists in the wild, but it's still an error.
 207
 208 - In .Bl -bullet, the groff bullet is "+\b+\bo\bo", the mandoc bullet
 209   is just "o\bo".
 210   see for example OpenBSD ksh(1)
 211
 212 - The characters "|" and "\*(Ba" should never be bold,
 213   not even in the middle of a word, e.g. ".Cm b\*(Bac" in
 214   "mknod [-m mode] name b|c major minor"
 215   in OpenBSD ksh(1)
 216
 217 - A bogus .Pp between two .It must not produce a double blank line,
 218   see between -R and -r in OpenBSD rm(1), before "update" in mount(8),
 219   or in DIAGNOSTICS in init(8), or before "is always true" in ksh(1).
 220   The same happens with .Pp just before .El, see bgpd.conf(5).
 221   Also have `It' complain if `Pp' is invoked at certain times (not
 222   -compact?).
 223
 224 - .Pp between two .It in .Bl -column should produce one,
 225   not two blank lines, see e.g. login.conf(5).
 226   reported by jmc@  Sun, 17 Apr 2011 14:04:58 +0059
 227   reported again by sthen@  Wed, 18 Jan 2012 02:09:39 +0000 (UTC)
 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   The same applies to .Bl -column column widths;
 251   reported again by Nicolas Joly Thu, 1 Mar 2012 13:41:26 +0100 via wiz@ 5 Mar
 252
 253 - The \& zero-width character counts as output.
 254   That is, when it is alone on a line between two .Pp,
 255   we want three blank lines, not two as in mandoc.
 256
 257 - When .Fn arguments exceed one output line, all but the first
 258   should be indented, see e.g. rpc(3);
 259   reported by jmc@ on discuss@  Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:48:33 +0100
 260   reported again by Nicolas Joly via wiz@  Sun, 18 Sep 2011 18:24:40 +0200
 261   Also, we don't want to break the line within the argument of:
 262   .Fa "chtype tl"
 263
 264 - .Ns should work when called at the end of an input line, see
 265   the following code in vi(1):
 266     .It Xo
 267     .Op Ar line
 268     .Cm a Ns Op Cm ppend Ns
 269     .Op Cm !\&
 270     .Xc
 271     The input text is appended after the specified line.
 272
 273 - Header lines of excessive length:
 274   Port OpenBSD man_term.c rev. 1.25 to mdoc_term.c
 275   and document it in mdoc(7) and man(7) COMPATIBILITY
 276   found while talking to Chris Bennett
 277
 278 - In man(7), the sequence
 279     .HP
 280     one line of regular text
 281     .SH
 282   should not produce two blank lines before the .SH,
 283   see for example named-checkconf(8).
 284
 285 - In man(7), the sequence
 286     .SH HEADER
 287     <blank line>
 288     .PP
 289     regular text
 290   should not produce any blank lines between the header and the text,
 291   see for example rsync(1).
 292   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 293
 294 - In man(7), the sequence
 295     regular text
 296     .IP
 297     .IP "tag"
 298     indented text
 299   should produce one, not four blank lines between the regular text
 300   and the tag, see for example rsync(1).
 301   Likewise,
 302     regular text
 303     .IP
 304     indented text
 305   should produce one, not two blank lines in between, and
 306     regular text
 307     .IP
 308     .RS
 309     .IP tag
 310     indented text
 311   should produce one, not three blank lines.
 312   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 313
 314 - trailing whitespace must be ignored even when followed by a font escape,
 315   see for example
 316     makes
 317     \fBdig \fR
 318     operate in batch mode
 319   in dig(1).
 320
 321 ************************************************************************
 322 * error reporting issues
 323 ************************************************************************
 324
 325 - .TP directly followed by .RS gives an assertion.
 326
 327 ************************************************************************
 328 * performance issues
 329 ************************************************************************
 330
 331 Several areas can be cleaned up to make mandoc even faster.  These are
 332
 333 - improve hashing mechanism for macros (quite important: performance)
 334
 335 - improve hashing mechanism for characters (not as important)
 336
 337 - the PDF file is HUGE: this can be reduced by using relative offsets
 338
 339 - instead of re-initialising the roff predefined-strings set before each
 340   parse, create a read-only version the first time and copy it
 341
 342 ************************************************************************
 343 * structural issues
 344 ************************************************************************
 345
 346 - We use the input line number at several places to distinguish
 347   same-line from different-line input.  That plainly doesn't work
 348   with user-defined macros, leading to random breakage.
 349
 350 - Find better ways to prevent endless loops
 351   in roff(7) macro and string expansion.
 352
 353 - Finish cleanup of date handling.
 354   Decide which formats should be recognized where.
 355   Update both mdoc(7) and man(7) documentation.
 356   Triggered by  Tim van der Molen  Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:30:45 +0100