In URIs in apropos(1) result tables,

[mandoc.git] / mdoc.7

diff --git a/mdoc.7 b/mdoc.7
index 198a46a9636f4bc32d82a50a93be912cd62471bc..6d95887736a1c571f13f8e9ca6b5da4d204185c0 100644 (file)
--- a/mdoc.7
+++ b/mdoc.7
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
-.\"    $Id: mdoc.7,v 1.257 2015/11/05 12:06:45 schwarze Exp $
+.\"    $Id: mdoc.7,v 1.262 2017/02/16 14:38:12 schwarze Exp $
 .\"
 .\" Copyright (c) 2009, 2010, 2011 Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@bsd.lv>
-.\" Copyright (c) 2010, 2011, 2013 Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>
+.\" Copyright (c) 2010, 2011, 2013-2017 Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>
 .\"
 .\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
 .\" purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
 .\" ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
 .\" OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
 .\"
-.Dd $Mdocdate: November 5 2015 $
+.Dd $Mdocdate: February 16 2017 $
 .Dt MDOC 7
 .Os
 .Sh NAME
@@ -974,10 +974,8 @@ argument.
 A columnated list.
 The
 .Fl width
-argument has no effect; instead, each argument specifies the width
-of one column, using either the scaling width syntax described in
-.Xr roff 7
-or the string length of the argument.
+argument has no effect; instead, the string length of each argument
+specifies the width of one column.
 If the first line of the body of a
 .Fl column
 list is not an
@@ -1831,14 +1829,25 @@ The
 list is the most complicated.
 Its syntax is as follows:
 .Pp
-.D1 Pf \. Sx \&It Ar cell Op <TAB> Ar cell ...
 .D1 Pf \. Sx \&It Ar cell Op Sx \&Ta Ar cell ...
+.D1 Pf \. Sx \&It Ar cell Op <TAB> Ar cell ...
 .Pp
 The arguments consist of one or more lines of text and macros
 representing a complete table line.
-Cells within the line are delimited by tabs or by the special
+Cells within the line are delimited by the special
 .Sx \&Ta
-block macro.
+block macro or by literal tab characters.
+.Pp
+Using literal tabs is strongly discouraged because they are very
+hard to use correctly and
+.Nm
+code using them is very hard to read.
+In particular, a blank character is syntactically significant
+before and after the literal tab character.
+If a word precedes or follows the tab without an intervening blank,
+that word is never interpreted as a macro call, but always output
+literally.
+.Pp
 The tab cell delimiter may only be used within the
 .Sx \&It
 line itself; on following lines, only the
@@ -1853,9 +1862,10 @@ Note that quoted strings may span tab-delimited cells on an
 line.
 For example,
 .Pp
-.Dl .It \(dqcol1 ; <TAB> col2 ;\(dq \&;
+.Dl .It \(dqcol1 ,\& <TAB> col2 ,\(dq \&;
 .Pp
-will preserve the semicolon whitespace except for the last.
+will preserve the whitespace before both commas,
+but not the whitespace before the semicolon.
 .Pp
 See also
 .Sx \&Bl .
@@ -2714,14 +2724,13 @@ Link to another manual
 .Pq Qq cross-reference .
 Its syntax is as follows:
 .Pp
-.D1 Pf \. Sx \&Xr Ar name Op section
+.D1 Pf \. Sx \&Xr Ar name section
 .Pp
 Cross reference the
 .Ar name
 and
 .Ar section
-number of another man page;
-omitting the section number is rarely useful.
+number of another man page.
 .Pp
 Examples:
 .Dl \&.Xr mandoc 1
@@ -3033,7 +3042,7 @@ then the macro accepts an arbitrary number of arguments.
 .It Sx \&Ux  Ta    Yes      Ta    Yes      Ta    n
 .It Sx \&Va  Ta    Yes      Ta    Yes      Ta    n
 .It Sx \&Vt  Ta    Yes      Ta    Yes      Ta    >0
-.It Sx \&Xr  Ta    Yes      Ta    Yes      Ta    >0
+.It Sx \&Xr  Ta    Yes      Ta    Yes      Ta    2
 .It Sx \&br  Ta    \&No     Ta    \&No     Ta    0
 .It Sx \&sp  Ta    \&No     Ta    \&No     Ta    1
 .El
@@ -3053,6 +3062,8 @@ For many macros, when the leading arguments are opening delimiters,
 these delimiters are put before the macro scope,
 and when the trailing arguments are closing delimiters,
 these delimiters are put after the macro scope.
+Spacing is suppressed after opening delimiters
+and before closing delimiters.
 For example,
 .Pp
 .D1 Pf \. \&Aq "( [ word ] ) ."
@@ -3109,7 +3120,7 @@ renders as:
 .D1 Fl a ( b | c \*(Ba d ) e
 .Pp
 This applies to both opening and closing delimiters,
-and also to the middle delimiter:
+and also to the middle delimiter, which does not suppress spacing:
 .Pp
 .Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
 .It \&|
@@ -3217,6 +3228,12 @@ but produces large indentations.
 .Xr mandoc_char 7 ,
 .Xr roff 7 ,
 .Xr tbl 7
+.Pp
+The web page
+.Lk http://mdocml.bsd.lv/mdoc/ "extended documentation for the mdoc language"
+provides a few tutorial-style pages for beginners, an extensive style
+guide for advanced authors, and an alphabetic index helping to choose
+the best macros for various kinds of content.
 .Sh HISTORY
 The
 .Nm