TODO

   1 ************************************************************************
   2 * Official mandoc TODO.
   3 * $Id: TODO,v 1.110 2011/06/12 12:13:27 joerg 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 - Assertion failure on src/share/man/man1/man1.atari/edahdi.1 rev 1.9
  14   in the NetBSD.
  15
  16 ************************************************************************
  17 * formatter bugs
  18 ************************************************************************
  19
  20 - tbl(7): Horizontal and vertical lines are formatted badly:
  21   With the box option, there is too much white space at the end of cells.
  22   Horizontal lines from "=" lines are a bit too long.
  23   yuri dot pankov at gmail dot com  Thu, 14 Apr 2011 05:45:26 +0400
  24
  25 ************************************************************************
  26 * missing features
  27 ************************************************************************
  28
  29 --- missing roff features ----------------------------------------------
  30
  31 - .ad (adjust margins)
  32   .ad l -- adjust left margin only (flush left)
  33   .ad r -- adjust right margin only (flush right)
  34   .ad c -- center text on line
  35   .ad b -- adjust both margins (alias: .ad n)
  36   .na   -- temporarily disable adjustment without changing the mode
  37   .ad   -- re-enable adjustment without changing the mode
  38   Adjustment mode is ignored while in no-fill mode (.nf).
  39
  40 - .it (line traps) occur in mysql(1), yasm_arch(7)
  41   generated by DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.71.1 <http://docbook.sf.net/>
  42   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:48:18 -0500
  43
  44 - .ns (no-space mode) occurs in xine-config(1)
  45   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
  46
  47 - xloadimage(1) wants .ti (temporary indent), rep by naddy@
  48
  49 - .ta (tab settings) occurs in ircbug(1) and probably gnats(1)
  50   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:50:51 -0500
  51
  52 - pod2man expects `tr' to be implemented for \*(-- to work
  53
  54 - \c (interrupted text) occurs in chat(8)
  55
  56 --- missing mdoc features ----------------------------------------------
  57
  58 - fix bad block nesting involving multiple identical explicit blocks
  59   see the OpenBSD mdoc_macro.c 1.47 commit message
  60
  61 - .Bl -column .Xo support is missing
  62   ultimate goal:
  63   restore .Xr and .Dv to
  64   lib/libc/compat-43/sigvec.3
  65   lib/libc/gen/signal.3
  66   lib/libc/sys/sigaction.2
  67
  68 - edge case: decide how to deal with blk_full bad nesting, e.g.
  69   .Sh .Nm .Bk .Nm .Ek .Sh found by jmc@ in ssh-keygen(1)
  70   from jmc@  Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:10:32 +0100
  71
  72 - \\ is now implemented correctly
  73   * when defining strings and macros using .ds and .de
  74   * when parsing roff(7) and man(7) macro arguments
  75   It does not yet work in mdoc(7) macro arguments
  76   because libmdoc does not yet use mandoc_getarg().
  77   Also check what happens in plain text, it must be identical to \e.
  78
  79 - .Bd -filled should not be the same as .Bd -ragged, but align both
  80   the left and right margin.  In groff, it is implemented in terms
  81   of .ad b, which we don't have either.  Found in cksum(1).
  82
  83 - implement blank `Bl -column', such as
  84   .Bl -column
  85   .It foo Ta bar
  86   .El
  87
  88 - explicitly disallow nested `Bl -column', which would clobber internal
  89   flags defined for struct mdoc_macro
  90
  91 - In .Bl -column .It, the end of the line probably has to be regarded
  92   as an implicit .Ta, if there could be one, see the following mildly
  93   ugly code from login.conf(5):
  94     .Bl -column minpasswordlen program xetcxmotd
  95     .It path Ta path Ta value of Dv _PATH_DEFPATH
  96     .br
  97     Default search path.
  98   reported by Michal Mazurek <akfaew at jasminek dot net>
  99   via jmc@ Thu, 7 Apr 2011 16:00:53 +0059
 100
 101 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, punctuation is handled like normal
 102   text, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Fl x . Ta ...' should give "-x -."
 103
 104 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, TERMP_IGNDELIM handling by `Pf'
 105   is not safe, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Pf a b .' gives "ab."
 106   but should give "ab ."
 107
 108 - set a meaningful default if no `Bl' list type is assigned
 109
 110 - have a blank `It' head for `Bl -tag' not puke
 111
 112 - prohibit `Nm' from having non-text HEAD children
 113   (e.g., NetBSD mDNSShared/dns-sd.1)
 114   (mdoc_html.c and mdoc_term.c `Nm' handlers can be slightly simplified)
 115
 116 - When there is free text in the SYNOPSIS and that free text contains
 117   the .Nm macro, groff somehow understands to treat the .Nm as an in-line
 118   macro, while mandoc treats it as a block macro and breaks the line.
 119   No idea how the logic for distinguishing in-line and block instances
 120   should be, needs investigation.
 121   uqs@  Thu, 2 Jun 2011 11:03:51 +0200
 122   uqs@  Thu, 2 Jun 2011 11:33:35 +0200
 123
 124 --- missing man features -----------------------------------------------
 125
 126 - .RS/.RE can be nested, see e.g. the x11/fluxbox manuals
 127   noticed by dcoppa@  Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 04:58:14PM +0200:
 128   also affects p5-Net-SFTP-Foreign-1.65
 129   as reported by gsoares@  Wed, 18 May 2011 09:59:06 -0300
 130
 131 - groff an-ext.tmac macros (.UR, .UE) occur in xine(5)
 132   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
 133
 134 --- missing tbl features -----------------------------------------------
 135
 136 - implement basic non-parametric .de to support e.g. sox(1)
 137   reported by naddy@ Sat, 16 Oct 2010 23:51:57 +0200
 138   *** sox(1) still doesn't work, tbl(1) errors need investigation
 139
 140 - allow standalone `.' to be interpreted as an end-of-layout
 141   delimiter instead of being thrown away as a no-op roff line
 142   reported by Yuri Pankov, Wed 18 May 2011 11:34:59 CEST
 143
 144 --- missing misc features ----------------------------------------------
 145
 146 - clean up escape sequence handling, creating three classes:
 147   (1) fully implemented, or parsed and ignored without loss of content
 148   (2) unimplemented, potentially causing loss of content
 149       or serious mangling of formatting (e.g. \n) -> ERROR
 150       see textproc/mgdiff(1) for nice examples
 151   (3) undefined, just output the character -> perhaps WARNING
 152
 153 - The \t escape sequence is the same as a literal tab, see for example
 154   the ASCII table in hexdump(1) where
 155     .Bl -column \&000_nu \&001_so \&002_st \&003_et \&004_eo
 156     .It \&000\ nul\t001\ soh\t002\ stx\t003\ etx\t004\ eot\t005\ enq
 157   produces
 158     000 nul  001 soh  002 stx  003 etx  004 eot  005 enq
 159   and the example in oldrdist(1)
 160
 161 - look at pages generated from reStructeredText, e.g. devel/mercurial hg(1)
 162   These are a weird mixture of man(7) and custom autogenerated low-level
 163   roff stuff.  Figure out to what extent we can cope.
 164   For details, see http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
 165   noted by stsp@  Sat, 24 Apr 2010 09:17:55 +0200
 166   reminded by nicm@  Mon, 3 May 2010 09:52:41 +0100
 167
 168 - check compatibility with Plan9:
 169   http://swtch.com/usr/local/plan9/tmac/tmac.an
 170   http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/man7/man.html
 171   "Anthony J. Bentley" <anthonyjbentley@gmail.com> 28 Dec 2010 21:58:40 -0700
 172
 173 ************************************************************************
 174 * formatting issues: ugly output
 175 ************************************************************************
 176
 177 - a column list with blank `Ta' cells triggers a spurrious
 178   start-with-whitespace printing of a newline
 179
 180 - double quotes inside double quotes are escaped by doubling them
 181   implement this in mdoc(7), too
 182   so far, we only have it in roff(7) and man(7)
 183   reminded by millert@  Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:29:52 -0500
 184
 185 - perl(1) SYNOPSIS looks bad; reported by deraadt@
 186   1) man(7) seems to need SYNOPSIS .Nm blocks, too
 187
 188 - In .Bl -column,
 189   .It Em Authentication<tab>Key Length
 190   ought to render "Key Length" with emphasis, too,
 191   see OpenBSD iked.conf(5).
 192
 193 - empty phrases in .Bl column produce too few blanks
 194   try e.g. .Bl -column It Ta Ta
 195   reported by millert Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:13:46 -0400
 196
 197 - .%T can have trailing punctuation.  Currently, it puts the trailing
 198   punctuation into a trailing MDOC_TEXT element inside its own scope.
 199   That element should rather be outside its scope, such that the
 200   punctuation does not get underlines.  This is not trivial to
 201   implement because .%T then needs some features of in_line_eoln() -
 202   slurp all arguments into one single text element - and one feature
 203   of in_line() - put trailing punctuation out of scope.
 204   Found in mount_nfs(8) and exports(5), search for "Appendix".
 205
 206 - in enclosures, mandoc sometimes fancies a bogus end of sentence
 207   reminded by jmc@  Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:13:39 +0059
 208
 209 ************************************************************************
 210 * formatting issues: gratuitous differences
 211 ************************************************************************
 212
 213 - .Rv (and probably .Ex) print different text if an `Nm' has been named
 214   or not (run a manual without `Nm blah' to see this).  I'm not sure
 215   that this exists in the wild, but it's still an error.
 216
 217 - In .Bl -bullet, the groff bullet is "+\b+\bo\bo", the mandoc bullet
 218   is just "o\bo".
 219   see for example OpenBSD ksh(1)
 220
 221 - The characters "|" and "\*(Ba" should never be bold,
 222   not even in the middle of a word, e.g. ".Cm b\*(Bac" in
 223   "mknod [-m mode] name b|c major minor"
 224   in OpenBSD ksh(1)
 225
 226 - A bogus .Pp between two .It must not produce a double blank line,
 227   see between -R and -r in OpenBSD rm(1), before "update" in mount(8),
 228   or in DIAGNOSTICS in init(8), or before "is always true" in ksh(1).
 229   The same happens with .Pp just before .El, see bgpd.conf(5).
 230   Also have `It' complain if `Pp' is invoked at certain times (not
 231   -compact?).
 232
 233 - .Pp between two .It in .Bl -column should produce one,
 234   not two blank lines, see e.g. login.conf(5).
 235   reported by jmc@  Sun, 17 Apr 2011 14:04:58 +0059
 236
 237 - If the *first* line after .It is .Pp, break the line right after
 238   the tag, do not pad with space characters before breaking.
 239   See the description of the a, c, and i commands in sed(1).
 240
 241 - If the first line after .It is .D1, do not assert a blank line
 242   in between, see for example tmux(1).
 243   reported by nicm@  13 Jan 2011 00:18:57 +0000
 244
 245 - .Nx 1.0a
 246   should be "NetBSD 1.0A", not "NetBSD 1.0a",
 247   see OpenBSD ccdconfig(8).
 248
 249 - In .Bl -tag, if a tag exceeds the right margin and must be continued
 250   on the next line, it must be indented by -width, not width+1;
 251   see "rule block|pass" in OpenBSD ifconfig(8).
 252
 253 - When the -width string contains macros, the macros must be rendered
 254   before measuring the width, for example
 255     .Bl -tag -width ".Dv message"
 256   in magic(5), located in src/usr.bin/file, is the same
 257   as -width 7n, not -width 11n.
 258
 259 - The \& zero-width character counts as output.
 260   That is, when it is alone on a line between two .Pp,
 261   we want three blank lines, not two as in mandoc.
 262
 263 - When .Fn arguments exceed one output line, all but the first
 264   should be indented, see e.g. rpc(3);
 265   reported by jmc@ on discuss@  Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:48:33 +0100
 266
 267 - .Ns should work when called at the end of an input line, see
 268   the following code in vi(1):
 269     .It Xo
 270     .Op Ar line
 271     .Cm a Ns Op Cm ppend Ns
 272     .Op Cm !\&
 273     .Xc
 274     The input text is appended after the specified line.
 275
 276 - Header lines of excessive length:
 277   Port OpenBSD man_term.c rev. 1.25 to mdoc_term.c
 278   and document it in mdoc(7) and man(7) COMPATIBILITY
 279   found while talking to Chris Bennett
 280
 281 - In man(7), the sequence
 282     .HP
 283     one line of regular text
 284     .SH
 285   should not produce two blank lines before the .SH,
 286   see for example named-checkconf(8).
 287
 288 - In man(7), the sequence
 289     regular text
 290     .RS
 291     .IP
 292   should have a blank line between the text and the beginning of the
 293   indented paragraph, see for example sudo(1).
 294
 295 - In man(7), the sequence
 296     .SH HEADER
 297     <blank line>
 298     .PP
 299     regular text
 300   should not produce any blank lines between the header and the text,
 301   see for example rsync(1).
 302   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 303
 304 - In man(7), the sequence
 305     regular text
 306     .PP
 307     .RS
 308     indented text
 309   should produce one blank line between the regular and indented texts,
 310   see for example rsync(1), and
 311     .RE
 312     <blank line>
 313     .PP
 314     .RS
 315   should produce two,not one blank lines.
 316   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 317
 318 - In man(7), the sequence
 319     regular text
 320     .IP
 321     .IP "tag"
 322     indented text
 323   should produce one, not four blank lines between the regular text
 324   and the tag, see for example rsync(1).
 325   Likewise,
 326     regular text
 327     .IP
 328     indented text
 329   should produce one, not two blank lines in between, and
 330     regular text
 331     .IP
 332     .RS
 333     .IP tag
 334     indented text
 335   should produce one, not three blank lines.
 336   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 337
 338 - At least sometimes, .sp is ignored right after .SH; see named.conf(5).
 339
 340 - trailing whitespace must be ignored even when followed by a font escape,
 341   see for example
 342     makes
 343     \fBdig \fR
 344     operate in batch mode
 345   in dig(1).
 346
 347 ************************************************************************
 348 * error reporting issues
 349 ************************************************************************
 350
 351 ************************************************************************
 352 * performance issues
 353 ************************************************************************
 354
 355 Several areas can be cleaned up to make mandoc even faster.  These are
 356
 357 - improve hashing mechanism for macros (quite important: performance)
 358
 359 - improve hashing mechanism for characters (not as important)
 360
 361 - the PDF file is HUGE: this can be reduced by using relative offsets
 362
 363 ************************************************************************
 364 * structural issues
 365 ************************************************************************
 366
 367 - Find better ways to prevent endless loops
 368   in roff(7) macro and string expansion.
 369
 370 - Finish cleanup of date handling.
 371   Decide which formats should be recognized where.
 372   Update both mdoc(7) and man(7) documentation.
 373   Triggered by  Tim van der Molen  Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:30:45 +0100