+.Ic \&Ta
+macro can only be used below
+.Ic \&It
+in
+.Ic \&Bl Fl column
+lists.
+It delimits blocks representing table cells;
+these blocks have bodies, but no heads.
+.Bl -column "MacroX" "CallableX" "ParsedX" "closed by XXXX" -offset indent
+.It Em Macro Ta Em Callable Ta Em Parsed Ta Em Scope
+.It Ic \&Ta Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta closed by Ic \&Ta , Ic \&It
+.El
+.Ss In-line
+Closed by the end of the line, fixed argument lengths,
+and/or subsequent macros.
+In-line macros have only text children.
+If a number (or inequality) of arguments is
+.Pq n ,
+then the macro accepts an arbitrary number of arguments.
+.Bd -literal -offset indent
+\&.Yo \(lB\-arg \(lBval...\(rB\(rB \(lBargs...\(rB \(lBres...\(rB
+
+\&.Yo \(lB\-arg \(lBval...\(rB\(rB \(lBargs...\(rB Yc...
+
+\&.Yo \(lB\-arg \(lBval...\(rB\(rB arg0 arg1 argN
+.Ed
+.Bl -column "MacroX" "CallableX" "ParsedX" "Arguments" -offset indent
+.It Em Macro Ta Em Callable Ta Em Parsed Ta Em Arguments
+.It Ic \&%A Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Ic \&%B Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Ic \&%C Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Ic \&%D Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Ic \&%I Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Ic \&%J Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Ic \&%N Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Ic \&%O Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Ic \&%P Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Ic \&%Q Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Ic \&%R Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Ic \&%T Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Ic \&%U Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Ic \&%V Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Ad Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&An Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Ap Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta 0
+.It Ic \&Ar Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Ic \&At Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta 1
+.It Ic \&Bsx Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Ic \&Bt Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta 0
+.It Ic \&Bx Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Ic \&Cd Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Cm Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Db Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta 1
+.It Ic \&Dd Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta n
+.It Ic \&Dt Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta n
+.It Ic \&Dv Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Dx Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Ic \&Em Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Er Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Es Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta 2
+.It Ic \&Ev Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Ex Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta n
+.It Ic \&Fa Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Fd Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Fl Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Ic \&Fn Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Fr Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Ft Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Fx Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Ic \&Hf Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta n
+.It Ic \&Ic Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&In Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta 1
+.It Ic \&Lb Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta 1
+.It Ic \&Li Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Lk Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Lp Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta 0
+.It Ic \&Ms Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Mt Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Nm Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Ic \&No Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Ns Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta 0
+.It Ic \&Nx Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Ic \&Os Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta n
+.It Ic \&Ot Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Ox Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Ic \&Pa Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Ic \&Pf Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta 1
+.It Ic \&Pp Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta 0
+.It Ic \&Rv Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta n
+.It Ic \&Sm Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta <2
+.It Ic \&St Ta \&No Ta Yes Ta 1
+.It Ic \&Sx Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Sy Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Tg Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta <2
+.It Ic \&Tn Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Ud Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta 0
+.It Ic \&Ux Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Ic \&Va Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Ic \&Vt Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Ic \&Xr Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta 2
+.El
+.Ss Delimiters
+When a macro argument consists of one single input character
+considered as a delimiter, the argument gets special handling.
+This does not apply when delimiters appear in arguments containing
+more than one character.
+Consequently, to prevent special handling and just handle it
+like any other argument, a delimiter can be escaped by prepending
+a zero-width space
+.Pq Sq \e& .
+In text lines, delimiters never need escaping, but may be used
+as normal punctuation.
+.Pp
+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 ] ) ."
+.Pp
+renders as:
+.Pp
+.D1 Aq ( [ word ] ) .
+.Pp
+Opening delimiters are:
+.Pp
+.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
+.It \&(
+left parenthesis
+.It \&[
+left bracket
+.El
+.Pp
+Closing delimiters are:
+.Pp
+.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
+.It \&.
+period
+.It \&,
+comma
+.It \&:
+colon
+.It \&;
+semicolon
+.It \&)
+right parenthesis
+.It \&]
+right bracket
+.It \&?
+question mark
+.It \&!
+exclamation mark
+.El
+.Pp
+Note that even a period preceded by a backslash
+.Pq Sq \e.\&
+gets this special handling; use
+.Sq \e&.\&
+to prevent that.
+.Pp
+Many in-line macros interrupt their scope when they encounter
+delimiters, and resume their scope when more arguments follow that
+are not delimiters.
+For example,
+.Pp
+.D1 Pf \. \&Fl "a ( b | c \e*(Ba d ) e"
+.Pp
+renders as:
+.Pp
+.D1 Fl a ( b | c \*(Ba d ) e
+.Pp
+This applies to both opening and closing delimiters,
+and also to the middle delimiter, which does not suppress spacing:
+.Pp
+.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
+.It \&|
+vertical bar
+.El
+.Pp
+As a special case, the predefined string \e*(Ba is handled and rendered
+in the same way as a plain
+.Sq \&|
+character.
+Using this predefined string is not recommended in new manuals.
+.Pp
+Appending a zero-width space
+.Pq Sq \e&
+to the end of an input line is also useful to prevent the interpretation
+of a trailing period, exclamation or question mark as the end of a
+sentence, for example when an abbreviation happens to occur
+at the end of a text or macro input line.
+.Ss Font handling
+In
+.Nm
+documents, usage of semantic markup is recommended in order to have
+proper fonts automatically selected; only when no fitting semantic markup
+is available, consider falling back to
+.Sx Physical markup
+macros.
+Whenever any
+.Nm
+macro switches the
+.Xr roff 7
+font mode, it will automatically restore the previous font when exiting
+its scope.
+Manually switching the font using the
+.Xr roff 7
+.Ql \ef
+font escape sequences is never required.
git.ckatri.com / mandoc.git / blobdiff