manuals.7

   1 .\"     $Id: manuals.7,v 1.17 2009/07/20 13:45:11 kristaps Exp $
   2 .\"
   3 .\" Copyright (c) 2009 Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@kth.se>
   4 .\"
   5 .\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
   6 .\" purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
   7 .\" copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
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   9 .\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
  10 .\" WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
  11 .\" MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
  12 .\" ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
  13 .\" WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
  14 .\" ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
  15 .\" OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
  16 .\"
  17 .Dd $Mdocdate: July 20 2009 $
  18 .Dt MANUALS 7
  19 .Os
  20 .\" SECTION
  21 .Sh NAME
  22 .Nm Writing UNIX Documentation
  23 .Nd a guide to writing UNIX manuals
  24 .\" SECTION
  25 .Sh DESCRIPTION
  26 .Em A utility without good documentation is of no utility at all .
  27 .\" PARAGRAPH
  28 .Pp
  29 A system component's documentation describes the utility of that
  30 component, whether it's a device driver, an executable or, most
  31 importantly, a game.
  32 .Pp
  33 This document serves as a tutorial to writing
  34 .Ux
  35 documentation
  36 .Pq Dq manuals .
  37 .\" SECTION
  38 .Sh ENVIRONMENT
  39 First, copy over the manual template from
  40 .Pa /usr/share/misc/mdoc.template
  41 into your source directory.
  42 .Pp
  43 .Dl % cp /usr/share/misc/mdoc.template \.
  44 .Pp
  45 .Em \&Do not
  46 start afresh or by copying another manual unless you know exactly what
  47 you're doing!  If the template doesn't exist, bug your administrator.
  48 .\" SUBSECTION
  49 .Ss Section Numbering
  50 Find an appropriate section for your manual.  There may exist multiple
  51 manual names per section, so be specific:
  52 .Pp
  53 .\" LIST
  54 .Bl -tag -width "XXXXXXXXXXXX" -offset indent -compact
  55 .It Em Section
  56 .Em Description
  57 .It 1
  58 operator utilities
  59 .It 2
  60 system calls
  61 .It 3, 3p, 3f
  62 programming libraries (C, Perl, Fortran)
  63 .It 5
  64 file and wire protocol formats
  65 .It 6
  66 games
  67 .It 7
  68 tutorials, documents and papers
  69 .It 8
  70 administrator utilities
  71 .It 9
  72 in-kernel routines
  73 .El
  74 .Pp
  75 If your manual falls into multiple categories, choose the most
  76 widely-used or, better, re-consider the topic of your manual to be more
  77 specific.  You can list all manuals per section by invoking
  78 .Xr apropos 1 ,
  79 then provide the
  80 .Fl s
  81 flag to
  82 .Xr man 1
  83 to see the specific section manual (section 1, in this example):
  84 .\" DISPLAY
  85 .Bd -literal -offset indent
  86 % apropos myname
  87 myname (1) - utility description
  88 myname (3) - library description
  89 % man \-s 1 myname
  90 .Ed
  91 .\" SUBSECTION
  92 .Ss Naming
  93 Name your component.  Be terse, erring on the side of clarity.  Look for
  94 other manuals by that same name before committing:
  95 .Pp
  96 .Dl % apropos myname
  97 .Pp
  98 Manual files are named
  99 .Pa myname.mysection ,
 100 such as
 101 .Pa manuals.7
 102 for this document.  Rename the template file:
 103 .Pp
 104 .Dl % mv mdoc.template myname.mysection
 105 .\" SUBSECTION
 106 .Ss Development Tools
 107 While writing, make sure that your manual is correctly structured:
 108 .Pp
 109 .Dl % mandoc \-Tlint \-Wall name.1
 110 .Pp
 111 You may spell-check your work as follows:
 112 .Pp
 113 .Dl % deroff name.1 | spell
 114 .Pp
 115 If
 116 .Xr ispell 1
 117 is installed, it has a special mode for manuals:
 118 .Pp
 119 .Dl % ispell \-n name.1
 120 .Pp
 121 Use
 122 .Xr cvs 1
 123 or
 124 .Xr rcs 1
 125 to version-control your work.  If you wish the last check-in to effect
 126 your document's date, use the following RCS tag for the date macro:
 127 .Pp
 128 .Dl \&.Dd $Mdocdate: July 20 2009 $
 129 .\" SUBSECTION
 130 .Ss Viewing
 131 mdoc documents may be paged to your terminal with
 132 .Xr mandoc 1 .
 133 If you plan on distributing your work to systems without this tool,
 134 check it against
 135 .Xr groff 1 :
 136 .Bd -literal -offset indent
 137 % mandoc \-Wall name.1 2>&1 | less
 138 % groff -mandoc name.1 2>&1 | less
 139 .Ed
 140 .\" SUBSECTION
 141 .Ss Automation
 142 Consider adding your mdoc documents to
 143 .Xr make 1
 144 Makefiles in order to automatically check your input:
 145 .Bd -literal -offset indent
 146 \&.SUFFIXES: .1 .in
 147
 148 \&.in.1:
 149         mandoc -Wall,error -Tlint $<
 150         cp -f $< $@
 151 .Ed
 152 .\" SUBSECTION
 153 .Ss Licensing
 154 Your manual must have a license.  It should be listed at the start of
 155 your document, just as in source code.
 156 .\" SECTION
 157 .Sh COMPOSITION
 158 Manuals should
 159 .Em always
 160 be written in the
 161 .Xr mdoc 7
 162 formatting language.
 163 .\" PARAGRAPH
 164 .Pp
 165 Open the template you've copied into
 166 .Pa myname.mysection
 167 and begin editing.
 168 .\" SUBSECTION
 169 .Ss Language
 170 .Bl -enum
 171 .It
 172 Use clear, concise language.  Favour simplicity.
 173 .It
 174 Write your manual in non-idiomatic English.  Don't worry about
 175 Commonwealth or American spellings \(em just correct ones.
 176 .It
 177 Spell-check your manual, keeping in mind short-letter terms (
 178 .Xr iwi 4
 179 vs.
 180 .Xr iwn 4 ) .
 181 .It
 182 If you absolutely must use special characters (diacritics, mathematical
 183 symbols and so on), use the escapes dictated in
 184 .Xr mdoc 7 .
 185 .El
 186 .\" SUBSECTION
 187 .Ss Style
 188 The structure of the mdoc language makes it very hard to have any
 189 particular format style.  Keep your lines under 72 characters in length.
 190 If you must have long option lines, use
 191 .Sq \&Oo/Oc .
 192 The same goes for function prototypes.
 193 .Em \&Do not
 194 use
 195 .Sq \&Xo/Xc .
 196 Find another way to structure your line.
 197 .\" SUBSECTION
 198 .Ss References
 199 Other components may be referenced with the
 200 .Sq \&Xr
 201 and
 202 .Sq \&Sx
 203 macros.  Make sure that these exist.  If you intend to distribute your
 204 manual, make sure
 205 .Sq \&Xr
 206 references are valid across systems (within reason).  If you cross-link with
 207 .Sq \&Sx ,
 208 make sure that the section reference exists.
 209 .\" SUBSECTION
 210 .Ss Citations
 211 Cite your work.  If your system references standards documents or other
 212 publications, please use the
 213 .Sq \&Rs/Re
 214 block macros.
 215 .\" SUBSECTION
 216 .Ss Formatting
 217 .Em Don't style your manual .
 218 Give it meaningful content.  The front-end will worry about formatting
 219 and style.
 220 .\" SECTION
 221 .Sh MAINTENANCE
 222 As your component changes and bugs are fixed, your manual may become out
 223 of date.  You may be tempted to use tools like Doxygen to automate the
 224 development of your manuals.  Don't.
 225 .Pp
 226 .Em Manuals are part of a system component :
 227 if you modify your code or specifications, modify the documentation.