-.\" $Id: mdoc.7,v 1.257 2015/11/05 12:06:45 schwarze Exp $
+.\" $Id: mdoc.7,v 1.267 2017/06/29 13:17:00 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
.\" 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: June 29 2017 $
.Dt MDOC 7
.Os
.Sh NAME
.It Sx \&Ap Ta apostrophe without surrounding whitespace (no arguments)
.It Sx \&Sm Ta switch horizontal spacing mode: Op Cm on | off
.It Sx \&Bk , \&Ek Ta keep block: Fl words
-.It Sx \&br Ta force output line break in text mode (no arguments)
-.It Sx \&sp Ta force vertical space: Op Ar height
.El
.Ss Semantic markup for command line utilities:
.Bl -column "Brq, Bro, Brc" description
.At .
.It Cm III
.At III .
-.It Cm V[.[1-4]]?
+.It Cm V | V.[1-4]
A version of
.At V .
.El
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
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
.Sx \&Ta
-macro can be used to delimit cells, and
+macro can be used to delimit cells, and portability requires that
.Sx \&Ta
-is only recognised as a macro when called by other macros,
-not as the first macro on a line.
+is called by other macros: some parsers do not recognize it when
+it appears as the first macro on a line.
.Pp
Note that quoted strings may span tab-delimited cells on an
.Sx \&It
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 .
.br
This standard is also called
X/Open Portability Guide version 7.
-.Pp
-.It \-p1003.1-2013
-.St -p1003.1-2013
-.br
-This is the first Technical Corrigendum.
.El
.It Other standards
.Pp
.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
.Dl \&.Xr mandoc 1 \&;
.Dl \&.Xr mandoc 1 \&Ns s behaviour
-.Ss \&br
-Emits a line-break.
-This macro should not be used; it is implemented for compatibility with
-historical manuals.
-.Pp
-Consider using
-.Sx \&Pp
-in the event of natural paragraph breaks.
-.Ss \&sp
-Emits vertical space.
-This macro should not be used; it is implemented for compatibility with
-historical manuals.
-Its syntax is as follows:
-.Pp
-.D1 Pf \. Sx \&sp Op Ar height
-.Pp
-The
-.Ar height
-argument is a scaling width as described in
-.Xr roff 7 .
-If unspecified,
-.Sx \&sp
-asserts a single vertical space.
.Sh MACRO SYNTAX
The syntax of a macro depends on its classification.
In this section,
.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 \&br Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta 0
-.It Sx \&sp Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta 1
+.It Sx \&Xr Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta 2
.El
.Ss Delimiters
When a macro argument consists of one single input character
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 ] ) ."
.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 \&|
.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
git.ckatri.com / mandoc.git / blobdiff