index.sgml

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   6                 <TITLE>mdocml | UNIX manpage compiler</TITLE>
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   9                 <P CLASS="head">
  10                         <B>mdocml</B> &#8211; UNIX manpage compiler, current version @VERSION@ (@VDATE@)
  11                 </P>
  12                 <P CLASS="subhead">
  13                         Sources: <A HREF="/snapshots/mdocml.tar.gz">current</A>,
  14                         <A HREF="/cgi-bin/cvsweb/?cvsroot=mdocml">cvsweb</A>
  15                         (<A HREF="/snapshots/">archives</A>)
  16                 </P>
  17                 <H1>
  18                         <A NAME="description">Description</A>
  19                 </H1>
  20                 <P>
  21                         <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> is a suite of tools compiling <I><A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc</A></I>, the roff macro
  22                         package of choice for BSD manual pages, and <I><A HREF="man.7.html">man</A></I>, the predominant historical package for
  23                         UNIX manuals.  The mission of <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> is to deprecate <A
  24                         HREF="http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/" CLASS="external">groff</A>, the GNU troff implementation, for displaying <I>mdoc</I>
  25                         pages whilst providing token support for <I>man</I>.
  26                 </P>
  27                 <P>
  28                         Why?  groff amounts to over 5 MB of source code, most of which is C++ and GPL version 3.  It runs slowly, produces
  29                         uncertain output, and varies in operation from system to system.  mdocml strives to fix this (respectively small, C, <A
  30                         CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.isc.org/software/license">ISC</A>-licensed, fast and regular).
  31                 </P>
  32                 <P>
  33                         <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> consists of the <A HREF="mandoc.3.html">libmandoc</A> validating compiler and <A
  34                         HREF="mandoc.1.html">mandoc</A>, which interfaces with the compiler library to format output for UNIX terminals (with
  35                         support for wide-character locales), XHTML, HTML, PostScript, and PDF.
  36                         It also includes <A HREF="preconv.1.html">preconv</A> for recoding multibyte manuals,
  37                         <A HREF="demandoc.1.html">demandoc</A> for emitting only text parts of manuals,
  38                         <A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A> for indexing manuals,
  39                         <A HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos</A> (includes whatis mode) for indexed manual search, and
  40                         <A HREF="man.cgi.7.html">man.cgi</A> for indexed manual search online.
  41                         It is a <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://bsd.lv/">BSD.lv</A> project.
  42                 </P>
  43                 <P>
  44                         <I>Disambiguation</I>: <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> is often referred to by its installed binary, <Q>mandoc</Q>.
  45                 </P>
  46                 <H2>
  47                         <A NAME="sources">Sources</A>
  48                 </H2>
  49                 <P>
  50                         <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> is in ISO C99 and should build and run on any modern system; however, you'll need <A
  51                         HREF="http://www.sqlite.org">sqlite3</A> to build <A HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos</A> (links to whatis),
  52                         <A HREF="man.cgi.7.html">man.cgi</A>, and <A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A>.
  53                         To build and install into <I>/usr/local/</I>, just run <CODE>make install</CODE>.
  54                         Be careful: the <B>preconv</B>, <B>apropos</B>, and <B>whatis</B> binary names are usually taken by existing utilities.
  55                 </P>
  56                 <H2>
  57                         Downstream
  58                 </H2>
  59                 <P>
  60                         Several systems come bundled with <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> utilities.
  61                         If your system does not appear below, the maintainers have not contacted me and it should not be considered
  62                         <Q>official</Q>.
  63                         Please <A HREF="#contact">contact us</A> if you plan on maintaining a downstream version!
  64                 </P>
  65                 <TABLE WIDTH="100%" SUMMARY="Downstream Sources">
  66                         <COL WIDTH="175">
  67                         <COL>
  68                         <TBODY>
  69                                 <TR>
  70                                         <TD>DragonFly BSD</TD>
  71                                         <TD>
  72                                         <A HREF="http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/tree/HEAD:/contrib/mdocml" CLASS="external">contrib/mdocml</A> (1.12.2 sources)
  73                                         <A HREF="http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/tree/HEAD:/lib/libmandoc" CLASS="external">lib/libmandoc</A>
  74                                         <A HREF="http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/tree/HEAD:/usr.bin/mandoc" CLASS="external">usr.bin/mandoc</A> (build system)
  75                                         </TD>
  76                                 </TR>
  77                                 <TR>
  78                                         <TD>FreeBSD 10.0, -CURRENT</TD>
  79                                         <TD>
  80                                         <A HREF="http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/contrib/mdocml/" CLASS="external">contrib/mdocml</A> (1.12.1 sources)
  81                                         <A HREF="http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/usr.bin/mandoc/" CLASS="external">usr.bin/mandoc</A> (build system)
  82                                         </TD>
  83                                 </TR>
  84                                 <TR>
  85                                         <TD>FreeBSD 9.x, 8.x</TD>
  86                                         <TD>
  87                                         <A HREF="http://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports/head/textproc/mdocml/" CLASS="external">ports/textproc/mdocml</A> (1.12.1 port)
  88                                         </TD>
  89                                 </TR>
  90                                 <TR>
  91                                         <TD>NetBSD</TD>
  92                                         <TD>
  93                                         <A HREF="http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/external/bsd/mdocml/" CLASS="external">src/external/bsd/mdocml</A> (1.12.1 sources plus patches and build system)
  94                                         </TD>
  95                                 </TR>
  96                                 <TR>
  97                                         <TD>OpenBSD</TD>
  98                                         <TD>
  99                                         <A HREF="http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/mandoc/" CLASS="external">src/usr.bin/mandoc</A> (1.12.2 sources and build system)
 100                                         </TD>
 101                                 </TR>
 102                                 <TR>
 103                                         <TD>pkgsrc</TD>
 104                                         <TD>
 105                                         <A HREF="http://pkgsrc.se/textproc/mdocml" CLASS="external">textproc/mdocml</A> (1.12.2 port)
 106                                         </TD>
 107                                 </TR>
 108                                 <TR>
 109                                         <TD>Minix3</TD>
 110                                         <TD>
 111                                         <A HREF="http://git.minix3.org/?p=minix.git;a=tree;f=external/bsd/mdocml" CLASS="external">external/bsd/mdocml</A> (1.10.9 sources and build system)
 112                                         </TD>
 113                                 </TR>
 114                                 <TR>
 115                                         <TD>Alpine Linux</TD>
 116                                         <TD>
 117                                         <A HREF="http://git.alpinelinux.org/cgit/aports/tree/main/mdocml" CLASS="external">aports/main/mdocml</A> (1.12.2 port)
 118                                         </TD>
 119                                 </TR>
 120                         </TBODY>
 121                 </TABLE>
 122                 <H1>
 123                         <A NAME="documentation">Documentation</A>
 124                 </H1>
 125                 <P>
 126                         These manuals are generated automatically and refer to the current release.
 127                         They are the authoritative documentation for the <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> system.
 128                 </P>
 129
 130                 <TABLE WIDTH="100%" SUMMARY="Documentation">
 131                         <COL WIDTH="175">
 132                         <COL>
 133                         <TBODY>
 134                                 <TR>
 135                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos(1)</A></TD>
 136                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 137                                                 search the manual page database
 138                                         </TD>
 139                                 </TR>
 140                                 <TR>
 141                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="demandoc.1.html">demandoc(1)</A></TD>
 142                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 143                                                 emit only text of UNIX manuals
 144                                         </TD>
 145                                 </TR>
 146                                 <TR>
 147                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="mandoc.1.html">mandoc(1)</A></TD>
 148                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 149                                                 format and display UNIX manuals
 150                                         </TD>
 151                                 </TR>
 152                                 <TR>
 153                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="preconv.1.html">preconv(1)</A></TD>
 154                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 155                                                 recode multibyte UNIX manuals
 156                                         </TD>
 157                                 </TR>
 158                                 <TR>
 159                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="mandoc.3.html">mandoc(3)</A></TD>
 160                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 161                                                 mandoc macro compiler library
 162                                         </TD>
 163                                 </TR>
 164                                 <TR>
 165                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="tbl.3.html">tbl(3)</A></TD>
 166                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 167                                                 roff table parser library for mandoc
 168                                         </TD>
 169                                 </TR>
 170                                 <TR>
 171                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="eqn.7.html">eqn(7)</A></TD>
 172                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 173                                                 eqn-mandoc language reference
 174                                         </TD>
 175                                 </TR>
 176                                 <TR>
 177                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="man.7.html">man(7)</A></TD>
 178                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 179                                                 man language reference
 180                                         </TD>
 181                                 </TR>
 182                                 <TR>
 183                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="man.cgi.7.html">man.cgi(7)</A></TD>
 184                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 185                                                 cgi for manpage query and display
 186                                         </TD>
 187                                 </TR>
 188                                 <TR>
 189                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="mandoc_char.7.html">mandoc_char(7)</A></TD>
 190                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 191                                                 mandoc special characters
 192                                         </TD>
 193                                 </TR>
 194                                 <TR>
 195                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc(7)</A></TD>
 196                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 197                                                 mdoc language reference
 198                                         </TD>
 199                                 </TR>
 200                                 <TR>
 201                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="roff.7.html">roff(7)</A></TD>
 202                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 203                                                 roff-mandoc language reference
 204                                         </TD>
 205                                 </TR>
 206                                 <TR>
 207                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="tbl.7.html">tbl(7)</A></TD>
 208                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 209                                                 tbl-mandoc language reference
 210                                         </TD>
 211                                 </TR>
 212                                 <TR>
 213                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb(8)</A></TD>
 214                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 215                                                 index UNIX manuals
 216                                         </TD>
 217                                 </TR>
 218                         </TBODY>
 219                 </TABLE>
 220                 <H2>
 221                         <A NAME="links">Supplementary Information</A>
 222                 </H2>
 223                 <UL>
 224                         <LI>
 225                                 <A HREF="http://manpages.bsd.lv/">Practical UNIX Manuals</A>: mdoc tutorial by Kristaps Dzonsons
 226                         </LI>
 227                         <LI>
 228                                 <A HREF="http://www.openbsd.org/faq/ports/specialtopics.html#Mandoc" CLASS="external">OpenBSD porting guide</A>
 229                                 chapter regarding manual pages
 230                         </LI>
 231                         <LI>
 232                                 <A HREF="press.html">Publications and media coverage</A>
 233                                 concerning mdocml and mandoc
 234                         </LI>
 235                         <LI>
 236                                 <A HREF="http://manpages.bsd.lv/history.html">History of UNIX Manpages</A>: a comprehensive overview by Kristaps Dzonsons
 237                         </LI>
 238                 </UL>
 239                 <H1>
 240                         <A NAME="contact">Contact</A>
 241                 </H1>
 242                 <P>
 243                         Use the mailing lists for bug-reports, patches, questions, etc.  Please check the
 244                         <A HREF="http://mdocml.bsd.lv/cgi-bin/cvsweb/TODO?cvsroot=mdocml">TODO</A> for known issues
 245                         before posting.  All lists are subscription-only: send a blank e-mail to the listed address to subscribe.  Beyond that,
 246                         contact Kristaps at <A HREF="http://mailhide.recaptcha.net/d?k=01M6h_w7twDp58ZgH57eWC_w==&amp;c=Q2DBUt401ePlSeupJFrq_Q==" TITLE="Reveal
 247                         this e-mail address">kris...</A>@bsd.lv.  Archives are available at <A HREF="http://gmane.org/" CLASS="external">Gmane</A>.
 248                 </P>
 249                 <TABLE WIDTH="100%" SUMMARY="Mailing Lists">
 250                         <COL WIDTH="175">
 251                         <COL>
 252                         <TBODY>
 253                                 <TR>
 254                                         <TD>
 255                                                 disc<A CLASS="external" TITLE="Reveal this e-mail address"
 256                                                 HREF="http://www.google.com/recaptcha/mailhide/d?k=01KQ80PFH5n3BBNpF5Gs4sRg==&amp;c=EV1QytpQqTHSItc2IXvZyocgYLPnG5K0JKw_gwMC9yc=">...</A>@mdocml.bsd.lv
 257                                         </TD>
 258                                         <TD>
 259                                                 bug-reports, general questions, and announcements
 260                                         </TD>
 261                                 </TR>
 262                                 <TR>
 263                                         <TD>
 264                                                 tec<A CLASS="external" TITLE="Reveal this e-mail address"
 265                                                 HREF="http://www.google.com/recaptcha/mailhide/d?k=01qDX_iV0RlUOarEvb6mR28g==&amp;c=gRXsTjza0NNCFPaYu-Taj2tF0pmYZSc90EZkFkhkxgo=">...</A>@mdocml.bsd.lv
 266                                         </TD>
 267                                         <TD>
 268                                                 patches and system discussions
 269                                         </TD>
 270                                 </TR>
 271                                 <TR>
 272                                         <TD>
 273                                                 sou<A CLASS="external" TITLE="Reveal this e-mail address"
 274                                                 HREF="http://www.google.com/recaptcha/mailhide/d?k=01prQrAZhhl2EbIwVcRfABsQ==&amp;c=KtTW4Yic9xk-8g40KzJoca4fR3MYXv28g8NC6OQV-T8=">...</A>@mdocml.bsd.lv
 275                                         </TD>
 276                                         <TD>
 277                                                 source commit messages
 278                                         </TD>
 279                                 </TR>
 280                         </TBODY>
 281                 </TABLE>
 282                 <H1>
 283                         <A NAME="news">News</A>
 284                 </H1>
 285                 <P CLASS="news">
 286                         xx-xx-2013: version 1.13.0
 287                 </P>
 288                 <P>
 289                          The <A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A> tools (<A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A>, <A
 290                         HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos</A> (absorbing whatis), and <A HREF="man.cgi.7.html">man.cgi</A>) have been re-written to
 291                         use <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.sqlite.org">sqlite3</A> as a database.
 292                 </P>
 293                 <P CLASS="news">
 294                         05-10-2013: version 1.12.2
 295                 </P>
 296                 <P>
 297                         The <A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc(7)</A> to <A HREF="man.7.html">man(7)</A> converter,
 298                         to be called as <CODE>mandoc -Tman</CODE>, is now fully functional.
 299                 </P>
 300                 <P>
 301                         The <A HREF="mandoc.1.html">mandoc(1)</A> utility now supports the <CODE>-Ios</CODE> (default operating system)
 302                         input option, and the <CODE>-Tutf8</CODE> output mode now actually works.
 303                 </P>
 304                 <P>
 305                         The <A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb(8)</A> utility no longer truncates existing databases when starting to build new ones,
 306                         but only replaces them when the build actually succeeds.
 307                 </P>
 308                 <P>
 309                         The <A HREF="man.7.html">man(7)</A> parser now supports the <EM>PD</EM> macro (paragraph distance),
 310                         and (for GNU man-ext compatibility only) <EM>EX</EM> (example block) and <EM>EE</EM> (example end).
 311                         Plus several bugfixes regarding indentation, line breaks, and vertical spacing,
 312                         and regarding <EM>RS</EM> following <EM>TP</EM>.
 313                 </P>
 314                 <P>
 315                         The <A HREF="roff.7.html">roff(7)</A> parser now supports the <EM>\f(BI</EM> (bold+italic) font escape,
 316                         the <EM>\z</EM> (zero cursor advance) escape and the <EM>cc</EM> (change control character)
 317                         and <EM>it</EM> (input line trap) requests.
 318                         Plus bugfixes regarding the <EM>\t</EM> (tab) escape, nested escape sequences, and conditional requests.
 319                 </P>
 320                 <P>
 321                         In <A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc(7)</A>, several bugs were fixed related to UTF-8 output of quoting enclosures,
 322                         delimiter handling, list indentation and horizontal and vertical spacing,
 323                         formatting of the <EM>Lk</EM>, <EM>%U</EM>, and <EM>%C</EM> macros,
 324                         plus some bugfixes related to the handling of syntax errors like badly nested font blocks,
 325                         stray <EM>Ta</EM> macros outside column lists, unterminated <EM>It Xo</EM> blocks,
 326                         and non-text children of <EM>Nm</EM> blocks.
 327                 </P>
 328                 <P>
 329                         In <A HREF="tbl.7.html">tbl(7)</A>, the width of horizontal spans and the vertical spacing around tables was corrected,
 330                         and in <A HREF="man.7.html">man(7)</A> files, a crash was fixed that was triggered by some particular unclosed <EM>T{</EM> macros.
 331                 </P>
 332                 <P>
 333                         For mandoc developers, we now provide a <A HREF="tbl.3.html">tbl(3)</A> library manual and <CODE>gmdiff</CODE>,
 334                         a very small, very simplistic groff-versus-mandoc output comparison tool.
 335                 </P>
 336                 <P CLASS="news">
 337                         23-03-2012: version 1.12.1
 338                 </P>
 339                 <P>
 340                         Significant work on <A HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos</A> and <A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A>.  These tools are
 341                         now much more robust.
 342                         A <A HREF="whatis.1.html">whatis</A> implementation is now handled as an <A HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos</A> mode.
 343                         These tools are also able to minimally handle pre-formatted pages, that is, those already formatted by another utility
 344                         such as GNU troff.
 345                 </P>
 346                 <P>
 347                         The <A HREF="man.cgi.7.html">man.cgi</A> script is also now available for wider testing.  It interfaces with <A
 348                         HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A> manuals cached by <A HREF="catman.8.html">catman</A>.  HTML output is generated
 349                         on-the-fly by <A HREF="mandoc.3.html">libmandoc</A> or internal methods to convert pre-formatted pages.
 350                 </P>
 351                 <P>
 352                         The mailing list archive for the discuss and tech lists are being hosted by <A CLASS="external"
 353                         HREF="http://www.gmane.org">Gmane</A> at <A HREF="http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.user"
 354                         CLASS="external">gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.user</A> and <A HREF="http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.devel"
 355                         CLASS="external">gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.devel</A>, respectively.
 356                 </P>
 357                 <P>
 358                         Lastly, I'm no longer providing binaries, as nobody has asked for them.
 359                 </P>
 360                 <H2>
 361                         <A>History</A>
 362                 </H2>
 363                 <UL>
 364                         <LI>
 365                                 <A HREF="NEWS">Release notes</A> going back to release 1.9.15, February 18, 2010.
 366                                 Briefly explaining the most important changes in each release in relatively easy terms.
 367                                 Very many changes are not mentioned here.
 368                         </LI>
 369                         <LI>
 370                                 <A HREF="history.html">Development history</A> going back to the beginning of the project, November 22, 2008.
 371                                 One-line entries for important commits, releases, merges, hackathons and talks.
 372                                 Makes it easy to find out who did what, and when, and when it became available where.
 373                                 However, this is still incomplete, mentioning only a small fraction of all commits,
 374                                 and to keep the size down, the individual entries are extremely terse and technical.
 375                                 Feel free to look up more details and longer explanations about individual entries
 376                                 in the ChangeLog or in CVS.
 377                         </LI>
 378                         <LI>
 379                                 <A HREF="ChangeLog">CVS ChangeLog</A> going back to the beginning of the project.
 380                                 Very technical information of varying quality, strictly chronological.
 381                                 All commits are mentioned, but some messages neglect to mention some changes.
 382                                 Partly terse, partly detailed and verbose.  In any case, the ChangeLog is very long -
 383                                 more than 25,000 lines, more than 700 kB.
 384                         </LI>
 385                         <LI>
 386                                 <A HREF="/cgi-bin/cvsweb/?cvsroot=mdocml">CVS</A> web interface, going back to the beginning of the project.
 387                                 Source code, diffs and commit messages for each source file.  The real thing.
 388                         </LI>
 389                 </UL>
 390                 <P CLASS="foot">
 391                         <SMALL>
 392                                 Copyright &#169; 2008&#8211;2011
 393                                 <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://kristaps.bsd.lv">Kristaps Dzonsons</A>,
 394                                 &#169; 2013 Ingo Schwarze,
 395                                 $Date: 2013/10/13 18:34:51 $
 396                         </SMALL>
 397                 </P>
 398         </BODY>
 399 </HTML>