+in
+.Sx \&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 Sx \&Ta Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta closed by Sx \&Ta , Sx \&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 Sx \&%A Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Sx \&%B Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Sx \&%C Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Sx \&%D Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Sx \&%I Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Sx \&%J Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Sx \&%N Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Sx \&%O Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Sx \&%P Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Sx \&%Q Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Sx \&%R Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Sx \&%T Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Sx \&%U Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Sx \&%V Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Ad Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&An Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Ap Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta 0
+.It Sx \&Ar Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Sx \&At Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta 1
+.It Sx \&Bsx Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Sx \&Bt Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta 0
+.It Sx \&Bx Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Sx \&Cd Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Cm Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Db Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta 1
+.It Sx \&Dd Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta n
+.It Sx \&Dt Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta n
+.It Sx \&Dv Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Dx Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Sx \&Em Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Er Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Es Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta 2
+.It Sx \&Ev Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Ex Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta n
+.It Sx \&Fa Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Fd Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Fl Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Sx \&Fn Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Fr Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Ft Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Fx Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Sx \&Hf Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta n
+.It Sx \&Ic Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&In Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta 1
+.It Sx \&Lb Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta 1
+.It Sx \&Li Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Lk Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Lp Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta 0
+.It Sx \&Ms Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Mt Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Nm Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Sx \&No Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta 0
+.It Sx \&Ns Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta 0
+.It Sx \&Nx Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Sx \&Os Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta n
+.It Sx \&Ot Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Ox Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Sx \&Pa Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta n
+.It Sx \&Pf Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta 1
+.It Sx \&Pp Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta 0
+.It Sx \&Rv Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta n
+.It Sx \&Sm Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta <2
+.It Sx \&St Ta \&No Ta Yes Ta 1
+.It Sx \&Sx Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Sy Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Tn Ta Yes Ta Yes Ta >0
+.It Sx \&Ud Ta \&No Ta \&No Ta 0
+.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 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.
+.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.
+.Sh COMPATIBILITY
+This section provides an incomplete list of compatibility issues
+between mandoc and GNU troff
+.Pq Qq groff .
+.Pp
+The following problematic behaviour is found in groff:
+.Pp
+.Bl -dash -compact
git.ckatri.com / mandoc.git / blobdiff