TODO

   1 ************************************************************************
   2 * Official mandoc TODO.
   3 * $Id: TODO,v 1.107 2011/05/21 21:38:17 schwarze 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 roff parser doesn't tolerate additional characters between
  14   a macro and the \} terminating a conditional block, e.g.
  15   .if n \{
  16   .br \}
  17   reported by ulrich spoerlein  Tue, 19 Oct 2010 20:39:50 +0200
  18
  19 ************************************************************************
  20 * formatter bugs
  21 ************************************************************************
  22
  23 - tbl(7): Horizontal and vertical lines are formatted badly:
  24   With the box option, there is too much white space at the end of cells.
  25   Horizontal lines from "=" lines are a bit too long.
  26   yuri dot pankov at gmail dot com  Thu, 14 Apr 2011 05:45:26 +0400
  27
  28 ************************************************************************
  29 * missing features
  30 ************************************************************************
  31
  32 --- missing roff features ----------------------------------------------
  33
  34 - .ad (adjust margins)
  35   .ad l -- adjust left margin only (flush left)
  36   .ad r -- adjust right margin only (flush right)
  37   .ad c -- center text on line
  38   .ad b -- adjust both margins (alias: .ad n)
  39   .na   -- temporarily disable adjustment without changing the mode
  40   .ad   -- re-enable adjustment without changing the mode
  41   Adjustment mode is ignored while in no-fill mode (.nf).
  42
  43 - .it (line traps) occur in mysql(1), yasm_arch(7)
  44   generated by DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.71.1 <http://docbook.sf.net/>
  45   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:48:18 -0500
  46
  47 - .ns (no-space mode) occurs in xine-config(1)
  48   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
  49
  50 - xloadimage(1) wants .ti (temporary indent), rep by naddy@
  51
  52 - .ta (tab settings) occurs in ircbug(1) and probably gnats(1)
  53   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:50:51 -0500
  54
  55 - pod2man expects `tr' to be implemented for \*(-- to work
  56
  57 - \c (interrupted text) occurs in chat(8)
  58
  59 --- missing mdoc features ----------------------------------------------
  60
  61 - fix bad block nesting involving multiple identical explicit blocks
  62   see the OpenBSD mdoc_macro.c 1.47 commit message
  63
  64 - .Bl -column .Xo support is missing
  65   ultimate goal:
  66   restore .Xr and .Dv to
  67   lib/libc/compat-43/sigvec.3
  68   lib/libc/gen/signal.3
  69   lib/libc/sys/sigaction.2
  70
  71 - edge case: decide how to deal with blk_full bad nesting, e.g.
  72   .Sh .Nm .Bk .Nm .Ek .Sh found by jmc@ in ssh-keygen(1)
  73   from jmc@  Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:10:32 +0100
  74
  75 - \\ is now implemented correctly
  76   * when defining strings and macros using .ds and .de
  77   * when parsing roff(7) and man(7) macro arguments
  78   It does not yet work in mdoc(7) macro arguments
  79   because libmdoc does not yet use mandoc_getarg().
  80   Also check what happens in plain text, it must be identical to \e.
  81
  82 - .Bd -filled should not be the same as .Bd -ragged, but align both
  83   the left and right margin.  In groff, it is implemented in terms
  84   of .ad b, which we don't have either.  Found in cksum(1).
  85
  86 - implement blank `Bl -column', such as
  87   .Bl -column
  88   .It foo Ta bar
  89   .El
  90
  91 - explicitly disallow nested `Bl -column', which would clobber internal
  92   flags defined for struct mdoc_macro
  93
  94 - In .Bl -column .It, the end of the line probably has to be regarded
  95   as an implicit .Ta, if there could be one, see the following mildly
  96   ugly code from login.conf(5):
  97     .Bl -column minpasswordlen program xetcxmotd
  98     .It path Ta path Ta value of Dv _PATH_DEFPATH
  99     .br
 100     Default search path.
 101   reported by Michal Mazurek <akfaew at jasminek dot net>
 102   via jmc@ Thu, 7 Apr 2011 16:00:53 +0059
 103
 104 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, punctuation is handled like normal
 105   text, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Fl x . Ta ...' should give "-x -."
 106
 107 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, TERMP_IGNDELIM handling by `Pf'
 108   is not safe, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Pf a b .' gives "ab."
 109   but should give "ab ."
 110
 111 - set a meaningful default if no `Bl' list type is assigned
 112
 113 - have a blank `It' head for `Bl -tag' not puke
 114
 115 - prohibit `Nm' from having non-text HEAD children
 116   (e.g., NetBSD mDNSShared/dns-sd.1)
 117   (mdoc_html.c and mdoc_term.c `Nm' handlers can be slightly simplified)
 118
 119 --- missing man features -----------------------------------------------
 120
 121 - .RS/.RE can be nested, see e.g. the x11/fluxbox manuals
 122   noticed by dcoppa@  Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 04:58:14PM +0200:
 123   also affects p5-Net-SFTP-Foreign-1.65
 124   as reported by gsoares@  Wed, 18 May 2011 09:59:06 -0300
 125
 126 - groff an-ext.tmac macros (.UR, .UE) occur in xine(5)
 127   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
 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 - perl(1) SYNOPSIS looks bad; reported by deraadt@
 181   1) man(7) seems to need SYNOPSIS .Nm blocks, too
 182
 183 - In .Bl -column,
 184   .It Em Authentication<tab>Key Length
 185   ought to render "Key Length" with emphasis, too,
 186   see OpenBSD iked.conf(5).
 187
 188 - empty phrases in .Bl column produce too few blanks
 189   try e.g. .Bl -column It Ta Ta
 190   reported by millert Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:13:46 -0400
 191
 192 - .%T can have trailing punctuation.  Currently, it puts the trailing
 193   punctuation into a trailing MDOC_TEXT element inside its own scope.
 194   That element should rather be outside its scope, such that the
 195   punctuation does not get underlines.  This is not trivial to
 196   implement because .%T then needs some features of in_line_eoln() -
 197   slurp all arguments into one single text element - and one feature
 198   of in_line() - put trailing punctuation out of scope.
 199   Found in mount_nfs(8) and exports(5), search for "Appendix".
 200
 201 - in enclosures, mandoc sometimes fancies a bogus end of sentence
 202   reminded by jmc@  Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:13:39 +0059
 203
 204 ************************************************************************
 205 * formatting issues: gratuitous differences
 206 ************************************************************************
 207
 208 - .Rv (and probably .Ex) print different text if an `Nm' has been named
 209   or not (run a manual without `Nm blah' to see this).  I'm not sure
 210   that this exists in the wild, but it's still an error.
 211
 212 - In .Bl -bullet, the groff bullet is "+\b+\bo\bo", the mandoc bullet
 213   is just "o\bo".
 214   see for example OpenBSD ksh(1)
 215
 216 - The characters "|" and "\*(Ba" should never be bold,
 217   not even in the middle of a word, e.g. ".Cm b\*(Bac" in
 218   "mknod [-m mode] name b|c major minor"
 219   in OpenBSD ksh(1)
 220
 221 - A bogus .Pp between two .It must not produce a double blank line,
 222   see between -R and -r in OpenBSD rm(1), before "update" in mount(8),
 223   or in DIAGNOSTICS in init(8), or before "is always true" in ksh(1).
 224   The same happens with .Pp just before .El, see bgpd.conf(5).
 225   Also have `It' complain if `Pp' is invoked at certain times (not
 226   -compact?).
 227
 228 - .Pp between two .It in .Bl -column should produce one,
 229   not two blank lines, see e.g. login.conf(5).
 230   reported by jmc@  Sun, 17 Apr 2011 14:04:58 +0059
 231
 232 - If the *first* line after .It is .Pp, break the line right after
 233   the tag, do not pad with space characters before breaking.
 234   See the description of the a, c, and i commands in sed(1).
 235
 236 - If the first line after .It is .D1, do not assert a blank line
 237   in between, see for example tmux(1).
 238   reported by nicm@  13 Jan 2011 00:18:57 +0000
 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
 254 - The \& zero-width character counts as output.
 255   That is, when it is alone on a line between two .Pp,
 256   we want three blank lines, not two as in mandoc.
 257
 258 - When .Fn arguments exceed one output line, all but the first
 259   should be indented, see e.g. rpc(3);
 260   reported by jmc@ on discuss@  Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:48:33 +0100
 261
 262 - .Ns should work when called at the end of an input line, see
 263   the following code in vi(1):
 264     .It Xo
 265     .Op Ar line
 266     .Cm a Ns Op Cm ppend Ns
 267     .Op Cm !\&
 268     .Xc
 269     The input text is appended after the specified line.
 270
 271 - Header lines of excessive length:
 272   Port OpenBSD man_term.c rev. 1.25 to mdoc_term.c
 273   and document it in mdoc(7) and man(7) COMPATIBILITY
 274   found while talking to Chris Bennett
 275
 276 - In man(7), the sequence
 277     .HP
 278     one line of regular text
 279     .SH
 280   should not produce two blank lines before the .SH,
 281   see for example named-checkconf(8).
 282
 283 - In man(7), the sequence
 284     regular text
 285     .RS
 286     .IP
 287   should have a blank line between the text and the beginning of the
 288   indented paragraph, see for example sudo(1).
 289
 290 - In man(7), the sequence
 291     .SH HEADER
 292     <blank line>
 293     .PP
 294     regular text
 295   should not produce any blank lines between the header and the text,
 296   see for example rsync(1).
 297   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 298
 299 - In man(7), the sequence
 300     regular text
 301     .PP
 302     .RS
 303     indented text
 304   should produce one blank line between the regular and indented texts,
 305   see for example rsync(1), and
 306     .RE
 307     <blank line>
 308     .PP
 309     .RS
 310   should produce two,not one blank lines.
 311   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 312
 313 - In man(7), the sequence
 314     regular text
 315     .IP
 316     .IP "tag"
 317     indented text
 318   should produce one, not four blank lines between the regular text
 319   and the tag, see for example rsync(1).
 320   Likewise,
 321     regular text
 322     .IP
 323     indented text
 324   should produce one, not two blank lines in between, and
 325     regular text
 326     .IP
 327     .RS
 328     .IP tag
 329     indented text
 330   should produce one, not three blank lines.
 331   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 332
 333 - At least sometimes, .sp is ignored right after .SH; see named.conf(5).
 334
 335 - trailing whitespace must be ignored even when followed by a font escape,
 336   see for example
 337     makes
 338     \fBdig \fR
 339     operate in batch mode
 340   in dig(1).
 341
 342 ************************************************************************
 343 * error reporting issues
 344 ************************************************************************
 345
 346 ************************************************************************
 347 * performance issues
 348 ************************************************************************
 349
 350 Several areas can be cleaned up to make mandoc even faster.  These are
 351
 352 - improve hashing mechanism for macros (quite important: performance)
 353
 354 - improve hashing mechanism for characters (not as important)
 355
 356 - the PDF file is HUGE: this can be reduced by using relative offsets
 357
 358 ************************************************************************
 359 * structural issues
 360 ************************************************************************
 361
 362 - Find better ways to prevent endless loops
 363   in roff(7) macro and string expansion.
 364
 365 - Finish cleanup of date handling.
 366   Decide which formats should be recognized where.
 367   Update both mdoc(7) and man(7) documentation.
 368   Triggered by  Tim van der Molen  Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:30:45 +0100