TODO

   1 ************************************************************************
   2 * Official mandoc TODO.
   3 * $Id: TODO,v 1.150 2013/06/22 10:05:44 schwarze Exp $
   4 ************************************************************************
   5
   6 ************************************************************************
   7 * crashes
   8 ************************************************************************
   9
  10 None known right now.
  11
  12 ************************************************************************
  13 * missing features
  14 ************************************************************************
  15
  16 --- missing roff features ----------------------------------------------
  17
  18 - roff.c should treat \n(.H>23 and \n(.V>19 in the pod2man(1)
  19   preamble as true, see for example AUTHORS in MooseX::Getopt.3p
  20   reported by Andreas Voegele <mail at andreasvoegele dot com>
  21   Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:34:47 +0100 on ports@
  22
  23 - .ad (adjust margins)
  24   .ad l -- adjust left margin only (flush left)
  25   .ad r -- adjust right margin only (flush right)
  26   .ad c -- center text on line
  27   .ad b -- adjust both margins (alias: .ad n)
  28   .na   -- temporarily disable adjustment without changing the mode
  29   .ad   -- re-enable adjustment without changing the mode
  30   Adjustment mode is ignored while in no-fill mode (.nf).
  31
  32 - .ce (center N lines)
  33   found by naddy@ in xloadimage(1)
  34   found by Juan Francisco Cantero Hurtado <iam at juanfra dot info>
  35            in lang/racket(1)  Thu, 20 Jun 2013 03:19:11 +0200
  36
  37 - .fc (field control)
  38   found by naddy@ in xloadimage(1)
  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 - .ta (tab settings) occurs in ircbug(1) and probably gnats(1)
  48   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:50:51 -0500
  49
  50 - .ti (temporary indent)
  51   found by naddy@ in xloadimage(1)
  52   found by bentley@ in nmh(1)  Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:38:28 -0600
  53
  54 - \c (interrupted text) should prevent the line break
  55   even inside .Bd literal; that occurs in chat(8)
  56
  57 - using undefined strings or macros defines them to be empty
  58   wl@  Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:37:01 +0000
  59
  60 --- missing mdoc features ----------------------------------------------
  61
  62 - fix bad block nesting involving multiple identical explicit blocks
  63   see the OpenBSD mdoc_macro.c 1.47 commit message
  64
  65 - .Bl -column .Xo support is missing
  66   ultimate goal:
  67   restore .Xr and .Dv to
  68   lib/libc/compat-43/sigvec.3
  69   lib/libc/gen/signal.3
  70   lib/libc/sys/sigaction.2
  71
  72 - edge case: decide how to deal with blk_full bad nesting, e.g.
  73   .Sh .Nm .Bk .Nm .Ek .Sh found by jmc@ in ssh-keygen(1)
  74   from jmc@  Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:10:32 +0100
  75
  76 - \\ is now implemented correctly
  77   * when defining strings and macros using .ds and .de
  78   * when parsing roff(7) and man(7) macro arguments
  79   It does not yet work in mdoc(7) macro arguments
  80   because libmdoc does not yet use mandoc_getarg().
  81   Also check what happens in plain text, it must be identical to \e.
  82
  83 - .Bd -filled should not be the same as .Bd -ragged, but align both
  84   the left and right margin.  In groff, it is implemented in terms
  85   of .ad b, which we don't have either.  Found in cksum(1).
  86
  87 - implement blank `Bl -column', such as
  88   .Bl -column
  89   .It foo Ta bar
  90   .El
  91
  92 - explicitly disallow nested `Bl -column', which would clobber internal
  93   flags defined for struct mdoc_macro
  94
  95 - In .Bl -column .It, the end of the line probably has to be regarded
  96   as an implicit .Ta, if there could be one, see the following mildly
  97   ugly code from login.conf(5):
  98     .Bl -column minpasswordlen program xetcxmotd
  99     .It path Ta path Ta value of Dv _PATH_DEFPATH
 100     .br
 101     Default search path.
 102   reported by Michal Mazurek <akfaew at jasminek dot net>
 103   via jmc@ Thu, 7 Apr 2011 16:00:53 +0059
 104
 105 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, punctuation is handled like normal
 106   text, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Fl x . Ta ...' should give "-x -."
 107
 108 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, TERMP_IGNDELIM handling by `Pf'
 109   is not safe, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Pf a b .' gives "ab."
 110   but should give "ab ."
 111
 112 - set a meaningful default if no `Bl' list type is assigned
 113
 114 - have a blank `It' head for `Bl -tag' not puke
 115
 116 - prohibit `Nm' from having non-text HEAD children
 117   (e.g., NetBSD mDNSShared/dns-sd.1)
 118   (mdoc_html.c and mdoc_term.c `Nm' handlers can be slightly simplified)
 119
 120 - When there is free text in the SYNOPSIS and that free text contains
 121   the .Nm macro, groff somehow understands to treat the .Nm as an in-line
 122   macro, while mandoc treats it as a block macro and breaks the line.
 123   No idea how the logic for distinguishing in-line and block instances
 124   should be, needs investigation.
 125   uqs@  Thu, 2 Jun 2011 11:03:51 +0200
 126   uqs@  Thu, 2 Jun 2011 11:33:35 +0200
 127
 128 --- missing man features -----------------------------------------------
 129
 130 - groff an-ext.tmac macros (.UR, .UE) occur in xine(5)
 131   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
 132   also occur in freeciv-client(6) freeciv-server(6) freeciv-modpack(6)
 133   reported by bentley@  Tue, 30 Oct 2012 01:05:57 -0600
 134
 135 - -T[x]html doesn't stipulate non-collapsing spaces in literal mode
 136
 137 --- missing tbl features -----------------------------------------------
 138
 139 - implement basic non-parametric .de to support e.g. sox(1)
 140   reported by naddy@ Sat, 16 Oct 2010 23:51:57 +0200
 141   *** sox(1) still doesn't work, tbl(1) errors need investigation
 142
 143 - allow standalone `.' to be interpreted as an end-of-layout
 144   delimiter instead of being thrown away as a no-op roff line
 145   reported by Yuri Pankov, Wed 18 May 2011 11:34:59 CEST
 146
 147 --- missing misc features ----------------------------------------------
 148
 149 - clean up escape sequence handling, creating three classes:
 150   (1) fully implemented, or parsed and ignored without loss of content
 151   (2) unimplemented, potentially causing loss of content
 152       or serious mangling of formatting (e.g. \n) -> ERROR
 153       see textproc/mgdiff(1) for nice examples
 154   (3) undefined, just output the character -> perhaps WARNING
 155
 156 - The \t escape sequence is the same as a literal tab, see for example
 157   the ASCII table in hexdump(1) where
 158     .Bl -column \&000_nu \&001_so \&002_st \&003_et \&004_eo
 159     .It \&000\ nul\t001\ soh\t002\ stx\t003\ etx\t004\ eot\t005\ enq
 160   produces
 161     000 nul  001 soh  002 stx  003 etx  004 eot  005 enq
 162   and the example in oldrdist(1)
 163
 164 - look at pages generated from reStructeredText, e.g. devel/mercurial hg(1)
 165   These are a weird mixture of man(7) and custom autogenerated low-level
 166   roff stuff.  Figure out to what extent we can cope.
 167   For details, see http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
 168   noted by stsp@  Sat, 24 Apr 2010 09:17:55 +0200
 169   reminded by nicm@  Mon, 3 May 2010 09:52:41 +0100
 170
 171 - check compatibility with Plan9:
 172   http://swtch.com/usr/local/plan9/tmac/tmac.an
 173   http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/man7/man.html
 174   "Anthony J. Bentley" <anthonyjbentley@gmail.com> 28 Dec 2010 21:58:40 -0700
 175
 176 ************************************************************************
 177 * formatting issues: ugly output
 178 ************************************************************************
 179
 180 - a column list with blank `Ta' cells triggers a spurrious
 181   start-with-whitespace printing of a newline
 182
 183 - double quotes inside double quotes are escaped by doubling them
 184   implement this in mdoc(7), too
 185   so far, we only have it in roff(7) and man(7)
 186   reminded by millert@  Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:29:52 -0500
 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   reported again Nicolas Joly via wiz@ Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:20:00 +0200
 193
 194 - empty phrases in .Bl column produce too few blanks
 195   try e.g. .Bl -column It Ta Ta
 196   reported by millert Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:13:46 -0400
 197
 198 - .%T can have trailing punctuation.  Currently, it puts the trailing
 199   punctuation into a trailing MDOC_TEXT element inside its own scope.
 200   That element should rather be outside its scope, such that the
 201   punctuation does not get underlines.  This is not trivial to
 202   implement because .%T then needs some features of in_line_eoln() -
 203   slurp all arguments into one single text element - and one feature
 204   of in_line() - put trailing punctuation out of scope.
 205   Found in mount_nfs(8) and exports(5), search for "Appendix".
 206
 207 - Trailing punctuation after .%T triggers EOS spacing, at least
 208   outside .Rs (eek!).  Simply setting ARGSFL_DELIM for .%T is not
 209   the right solution, it sends mandoc into an endless loop.
 210   reported by Nicolas Joly  Sat, 17 Nov 2012 11:49:54 +0100
 211
 212 - in enclosures, mandoc sometimes fancies a bogus end of sentence
 213   reminded by jmc@  Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:13:39 +0059
 214
 215 - formatting /usr/local/man/man1/latex2man.1 with groff and mandoc
 216   reveals lots of bugs both in groff and mandoc...
 217   reported by bentley@  Wed, 22 May 2013 23:49:30 -0600
 218
 219 ************************************************************************
 220 * formatting issues: gratuitous differences
 221 ************************************************************************
 222
 223 - .Rv (and probably .Ex) print different text if an `Nm' has been named
 224   or not (run a manual without `Nm blah' to see this).  I'm not sure
 225   that this exists in the wild, but it's still an error.
 226
 227 - In .Bl -bullet, the groff bullet is "+\b+\bo\bo", the mandoc bullet
 228   is just "o\bo".
 229   see for example OpenBSD ksh(1)
 230
 231 - .Pp between two .It in .Bl -column should produce one,
 232   not two blank lines, see e.g. login.conf(5).
 233   reported by jmc@  Sun, 17 Apr 2011 14:04:58 +0059
 234   reported again by sthen@  Wed, 18 Jan 2012 02:09:39 +0000 (UTC)
 235
 236 - If the *first* line after .It is .Pp, break the line right after
 237   the tag, do not pad with space characters before breaking.
 238   See the description of the a, c, and i commands in sed(1).
 239
 240 - If the first line after .It is .D1, do not assert a blank line
 241   in between, see for example tmux(1).
 242   reported by nicm@  13 Jan 2011 00:18:57 +0000
 243
 244 - Trailing punctuation after .It should trigger EOS spacing.
 245   reported by Nicolas Joly  Sat, 17 Nov 2012 11:49:54 +0100
 246   Probably, this should be fixed somewhere in termp_it_pre(), not sure.
 247
 248 - .Nx 1.0a
 249   should be "NetBSD 1.0A", not "NetBSD 1.0a",
 250   see OpenBSD ccdconfig(8).
 251
 252 - In .Bl -tag, if a tag exceeds the right margin and must be continued
 253   on the next line, it must be indented by -width, not width+1;
 254   see "rule block|pass" in OpenBSD ifconfig(8).
 255
 256 - When the -width string contains macros, the macros must be rendered
 257   before measuring the width, for example
 258     .Bl -tag -width ".Dv message"
 259   in magic(5), located in src/usr.bin/file, is the same
 260   as -width 7n, not -width 11n.
 261   The same applies to .Bl -column column widths;
 262   reported again by Nicolas Joly Thu, 1 Mar 2012 13:41:26 +0100 via wiz@ 5 Mar
 263
 264 - The \& zero-width character counts as output.
 265   That is, when it is alone on a line between two .Pp,
 266   we want three blank lines, not two as in mandoc.
 267
 268 - When .Fn arguments exceed one output line, all but the first
 269   should be indented, see e.g. rpc(3);
 270   reported by jmc@ on discuss@  Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:48:33 +0100
 271   reported again by Nicolas Joly via wiz@  Sun, 18 Sep 2011 18:24:40 +0200
 272   Also, we don't want to break the line within the argument of:
 273   .Fa "chtype tl"
 274
 275 - Header lines of excessive length:
 276   Port OpenBSD man_term.c rev. 1.25 to mdoc_term.c
 277   and document it in mdoc(7) and man(7) COMPATIBILITY
 278   found while talking to Chris Bennett
 279
 280 - trailing whitespace must be ignored even when followed by a font escape,
 281   see for example
 282     makes
 283     \fBdig \fR
 284     operate in batch mode
 285   in dig(1).
 286
 287 ************************************************************************
 288 * performance issues
 289 ************************************************************************
 290
 291 Several areas can be cleaned up to make mandoc even faster.  These are
 292
 293 - improve hashing mechanism for macros (quite important: performance)
 294
 295 - improve hashing mechanism for characters (not as important)
 296
 297 - the PDF file is HUGE: this can be reduced by using relative offsets
 298
 299 - instead of re-initialising the roff predefined-strings set before each
 300   parse, create a read-only version the first time and copy it
 301
 302 ************************************************************************
 303 * structural issues
 304 ************************************************************************
 305
 306 - We use the input line number at several places to distinguish
 307   same-line from different-line input.  That plainly doesn't work
 308   with user-defined macros, leading to random breakage.
 309
 310 - Find better ways to prevent endless loops
 311   in roff(7) macro and string expansion.
 312
 313 - Finish cleanup of date handling.
 314   Decide which formats should be recognized where.
 315   Update both mdoc(7) and man(7) documentation.
 316   Triggered by  Tim van der Molen  Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:30:45 +0100