TODO

   1 ************************************************************************
   2 * Official mandoc TODO.
   3 * $Id: TODO,v 1.106 2011/05/18 23:59:08 kristaps 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
 124 - groff an-ext.tmac macros (.UR, .UE) occur in xine(5)
 125   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
 126
 127 --- missing tbl features -----------------------------------------------
 128
 129 - implement basic non-parametric .de to support e.g. sox(1)
 130   reported by naddy@ Sat, 16 Oct 2010 23:51:57 +0200
 131   *** sox(1) still doesn't work, tbl(1) errors need investigation
 132
 133 - allow standalone `.' to be interpreted as an end-of-layout
 134   delimiter instead of being thrown away as a no-op roff line
 135   reported by Yuri Pankov, Wed 18 May 2011 11:34:59 CEST
 136
 137 --- missing misc features ----------------------------------------------
 138
 139 - clean up escape sequence handling, creating three classes:
 140   (1) fully implemented, or parsed and ignored without loss of content
 141   (2) unimplemented, potentially causing loss of content
 142       or serious mangling of formatting (e.g. \n) -> ERROR
 143       see textproc/mgdiff(1) for nice examples
 144   (3) undefined, just output the character -> perhaps WARNING
 145
 146 - The \t escape sequence is the same as a literal tab, see for example
 147   the ASCII table in hexdump(1) where
 148     .Bl -column \&000_nu \&001_so \&002_st \&003_et \&004_eo
 149     .It \&000\ nul\t001\ soh\t002\ stx\t003\ etx\t004\ eot\t005\ enq
 150   produces
 151     000 nul  001 soh  002 stx  003 etx  004 eot  005 enq
 152   and the example in oldrdist(1)
 153
 154 - look at pages generated from reStructeredText, e.g. devel/mercurial hg(1)
 155   These are a weird mixture of man(7) and custom autogenerated low-level
 156   roff stuff.  Figure out to what extent we can cope.
 157   For details, see http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
 158   noted by stsp@  Sat, 24 Apr 2010 09:17:55 +0200
 159   reminded by nicm@  Mon, 3 May 2010 09:52:41 +0100
 160
 161 - check compatibility with Plan9:
 162   http://swtch.com/usr/local/plan9/tmac/tmac.an
 163   http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/man7/man.html
 164   "Anthony J. Bentley" <anthonyjbentley@gmail.com> 28 Dec 2010 21:58:40 -0700
 165
 166 ************************************************************************
 167 * formatting issues: ugly output
 168 ************************************************************************
 169
 170 - a column list with blank `Ta' cells triggers a spurrious
 171   start-with-whitespace printing of a newline
 172
 173 - double quotes inside double quotes are escaped by doubling them
 174   implement this in mdoc(7), too
 175   so far, we only have it in roff(7) and man(7)
 176   reminded by millert@  Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:29:52 -0500
 177
 178 - perl(1) SYNOPSIS looks bad; reported by deraadt@
 179   1) man(7) seems to need SYNOPSIS .Nm blocks, too
 180
 181 - In .Bl -column,
 182   .It Em Authentication<tab>Key Length
 183   ought to render "Key Length" with emphasis, too,
 184   see OpenBSD iked.conf(5).
 185
 186 - empty phrases in .Bl column produce too few blanks
 187   try e.g. .Bl -column It Ta Ta
 188   reported by millert Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:13:46 -0400
 189
 190 - .%T can have trailing punctuation.  Currently, it puts the trailing
 191   punctuation into a trailing MDOC_TEXT element inside its own scope.
 192   That element should rather be outside its scope, such that the
 193   punctuation does not get underlines.  This is not trivial to
 194   implement because .%T then needs some features of in_line_eoln() -
 195   slurp all arguments into one single text element - and one feature
 196   of in_line() - put trailing punctuation out of scope.
 197   Found in mount_nfs(8) and exports(5), search for "Appendix".
 198
 199 - in enclosures, mandoc sometimes fancies a bogus end of sentence
 200   reminded by jmc@  Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:13:39 +0059
 201
 202 ************************************************************************
 203 * formatting issues: gratuitous differences
 204 ************************************************************************
 205
 206 - .Rv (and probably .Ex) print different text if an `Nm' has been named
 207   or not (run a manual without `Nm blah' to see this).  I'm not sure
 208   that this exists in the wild, but it's still an error.
 209
 210 - In .Bl -bullet, the groff bullet is "+\b+\bo\bo", the mandoc bullet
 211   is just "o\bo".
 212   see for example OpenBSD ksh(1)
 213
 214 - The characters "|" and "\*(Ba" should never be bold,
 215   not even in the middle of a word, e.g. ".Cm b\*(Bac" in
 216   "mknod [-m mode] name b|c major minor"
 217   in OpenBSD ksh(1)
 218
 219 - A bogus .Pp between two .It must not produce a double blank line,
 220   see between -R and -r in OpenBSD rm(1), before "update" in mount(8),
 221   or in DIAGNOSTICS in init(8), or before "is always true" in ksh(1).
 222   The same happens with .Pp just before .El, see bgpd.conf(5).
 223   Also have `It' complain if `Pp' is invoked at certain times (not
 224   -compact?).
 225
 226 - .Pp between two .It in .Bl -column should produce one,
 227   not two blank lines, see e.g. login.conf(5).
 228   reported by jmc@  Sun, 17 Apr 2011 14:04:58 +0059
 229
 230 - If the *first* line after .It is .Pp, break the line right after
 231   the tag, do not pad with space characters before breaking.
 232   See the description of the a, c, and i commands in sed(1).
 233
 234 - If the first line after .It is .D1, do not assert a blank line
 235   in between, see for example tmux(1).
 236   reported by nicm@  13 Jan 2011 00:18:57 +0000
 237
 238 - .Nx 1.0a
 239   should be "NetBSD 1.0A", not "NetBSD 1.0a",
 240   see OpenBSD ccdconfig(8).
 241
 242 - In .Bl -tag, if a tag exceeds the right margin and must be continued
 243   on the next line, it must be indented by -width, not width+1;
 244   see "rule block|pass" in OpenBSD ifconfig(8).
 245
 246 - When the -width string contains macros, the macros must be rendered
 247   before measuring the width, for example
 248     .Bl -tag -width ".Dv message"
 249   in magic(5), located in src/usr.bin/file, is the same
 250   as -width 7n, not -width 11n.
 251
 252 - The \& zero-width character counts as output.
 253   That is, when it is alone on a line between two .Pp,
 254   we want three blank lines, not two as in mandoc.
 255
 256 - When .Fn arguments exceed one output line, all but the first
 257   should be indented, see e.g. rpc(3);
 258   reported by jmc@ on discuss@  Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:48:33 +0100
 259
 260 - .Ns should work when called at the end of an input line, see
 261   the following code in vi(1):
 262     .It Xo
 263     .Op Ar line
 264     .Cm a Ns Op Cm ppend Ns
 265     .Op Cm !\&
 266     .Xc
 267     The input text is appended after the specified line.
 268
 269 - Header lines of excessive length:
 270   Port OpenBSD man_term.c rev. 1.25 to mdoc_term.c
 271   and document it in mdoc(7) and man(7) COMPATIBILITY
 272   found while talking to Chris Bennett
 273
 274 - In man(7), the sequence
 275     .HP
 276     one line of regular text
 277     .SH
 278   should not produce two blank lines before the .SH,
 279   see for example named-checkconf(8).
 280
 281 - In man(7), the sequence
 282     regular text
 283     .RS
 284     .IP
 285   should have a blank line between the text and the beginning of the
 286   indented paragraph, see for example sudo(1).
 287
 288 - In man(7), the sequence
 289     .SH HEADER
 290     <blank line>
 291     .PP
 292     regular text
 293   should not produce any blank lines between the header and the text,
 294   see for example rsync(1).
 295   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 296
 297 - In man(7), the sequence
 298     regular text
 299     .PP
 300     .RS
 301     indented text
 302   should produce one blank line between the regular and indented texts,
 303   see for example rsync(1), and
 304     .RE
 305     <blank line>
 306     .PP
 307     .RS
 308   should produce two,not one blank lines.
 309   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 310
 311 - In man(7), the sequence
 312     regular text
 313     .IP
 314     .IP "tag"
 315     indented text
 316   should produce one, not four blank lines between the regular text
 317   and the tag, see for example rsync(1).
 318   Likewise,
 319     regular text
 320     .IP
 321     indented text
 322   should produce one, not two blank lines in between, and
 323     regular text
 324     .IP
 325     .RS
 326     .IP tag
 327     indented text
 328   should produce one, not three blank lines.
 329   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 330
 331 - At least sometimes, .sp is ignored right after .SH; see named.conf(5).
 332
 333 - trailing whitespace must be ignored even when followed by a font escape,
 334   see for example
 335     makes
 336     \fBdig \fR
 337     operate in batch mode
 338   in dig(1).
 339
 340 ************************************************************************
 341 * error reporting issues
 342 ************************************************************************
 343
 344 ************************************************************************
 345 * performance issues
 346 ************************************************************************
 347
 348 Several areas can be cleaned up to make mandoc even faster.  These are
 349
 350 - improve hashing mechanism for macros (quite important: performance)
 351
 352 - improve hashing mechanism for characters (not as important)
 353
 354 - the PDF file is HUGE: this can be reduced by using relative offsets
 355
 356 ************************************************************************
 357 * structural issues
 358 ************************************************************************
 359
 360 - Find better ways to prevent endless loops
 361   in roff(7) macro and string expansion.
 362
 363 - Finish cleanup of date handling.
 364   Decide which formats should be recognized where.
 365   Update both mdoc(7) and man(7) documentation.
 366   Triggered by  Tim van der Molen  Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:30:45 +0100