+or a single one character sequence.
+See
+.Xr mandoc_char 7
+for a complete list.
+Examples include
+.Sq \e(em
+.Pq em-dash
+and
+.Sq \ee
+.Pq back-slash .
+.Ss Text Decoration
+Terms may be text-decorated using the
+.Sq \ef
+escape followed by an indicator: B (bold), I (italic), R (Roman), or P
+(revert to previous mode):
+.Pp
+.D1 \efBbold\efR \efIitalic\efP
+.Pp
+A numerical representation 3, 2, or 1 (bold, italic, and Roman,
+respectively) may be used instead.
+A text decoration is valid within
+the current font scope only: if a macro opens a font scope alongside
+its own scope, such as
+.Sx \&Bf
+.Cm \&Sy ,
+in-scope invocations of
+.Sq \ef
+are only valid within the font scope of the macro.
+If
+.Sq \ef
+is specified outside of any font scope, such as in unenclosed, free-form
+text, it will affect the remainder of the document.
+.Pp
+Note this form is
+.Em not
+recommended for
+.Nm ,
+which encourages semantic annotation.
+.Ss Predefined Strings
+Historically,
+troff
+also defined a set of package-specific
+.Dq predefined strings ,
+which, like
+.Sx Special Characters ,
+mark special output characters and strings by way of input codes.
+Predefined strings are escaped with the slash-asterisk,
+.Sq \e* :
+single-character
+.Sq \e*X ,
+two-character
+.Sq \e*(XX ,
+and N-character
+.Sq \e*[N] .
+See
+.Xr mandoc_char 7
+for a complete list.
+Examples include
+.Sq \e*(Am
+.Pq ampersand
+and
+.Sq \e*(Ba
+.Pq vertical bar .
+.Ss Whitespace
+Whitespace consists of the space character.
+In free-form lines, whitespace is preserved within a line; unescaped
+trailing spaces are stripped from input (unless in a literal context).
+Blank free-form lines, which may include whitespace, are only permitted
+within literal contexts.
+.Pp
+In macro lines, whitespace delimits arguments and is discarded.
+If arguments are quoted, whitespace within the quotes is retained.
+.Ss Quotation
+Macro arguments may be quoted with double-quotes to group
+space-delimited terms or to retain blocks of whitespace.
+A quoted argument begins with a double-quote preceded by whitespace.
+The next double-quote not pairwise adjacent to another double-quote
+terminates the literal, regardless of surrounding whitespace.
+.Pp
+Note that any quoted text, even if it would cause a macro invocation
+when unquoted, is considered literal text.
+Thus, the following produces
+.Sq Op "Fl a" :
+.Bd -literal -offset indent
+\&.Op "Fl a"
+.Ed
+.Pp
+In free-form mode, quotes are regarded as opaque text.
+.Ss Dates
+There are several macros in
+.Nm
+that require a date argument.
+The canonical form for dates is the American format:
+.Pp
+.D1 Cm Month Day , Year
+.Pp
+The
+.Cm Day
+value is an optionally zero-padded numeral.
+The
+.Cm Month
+value is the full month name.
+The
+.Cm Year
+value is the full four-digit year.
+.Pp
+Reduced form dates are broken-down canonical form dates:
+.Pp
+.D1 Cm Month , Year
+.D1 Cm Year
+.Pp
+Some examples of valid dates follow:
+.Pp
+.D1 "May, 2009" Pq reduced form
+.D1 "2009" Pq reduced form
+.D1 "May 20, 2009" Pq canonical form
+.Ss Scaling Widths
+Many macros support scaled widths for their arguments, such as
+stipulating a two-inch list indentation with the following:
+.Bd -literal -offset indent
+\&.Bl -tag -width 2i
+.Ed
+.Pp
+The syntax for scaled widths is
+.Sq Li [+-]?[0-9]*.[0-9]*[:unit:] ,
+where a decimal must be preceded or proceeded by at least one digit.
+Negative numbers, while accepted, are truncated to zero.
+The following scaling units are accepted:
+.Pp
+.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
+.It c
+centimetre
+.It i
+inch
+.It P
+pica (~1/6 inch)
+.It p
+point (~1/72 inch)
+.It f
+synonym for
+.Sq u
+.It v
+default vertical span
+.It m
+width of rendered
+.Sq m
+.Pq em
+character
+.It n
+width of rendered
+.Sq n
+.Pq en
+character
+.It u
+default horizontal span
+.It M
+mini-em (~1/100 em)
+.El
+.Pp
+Using anything other than
+.Sq m ,
+.Sq n ,
+.Sq u ,
+or
+.Sq v
+is necessarily non-portable across output media.
+See
+.Sx COMPATIBILITY .
+.Ss Sentence Spacing
+When composing a manual, make sure that sentences end at the end of
+a line.
+By doing so, front-ends will be able to apply the proper amount of
+spacing after the end of sentence (unescaped) period, exclamation mark,
+or question mark followed by zero or more non-sentence closing
+delimiters (
+.Ns Sq \&) ,
+.Sq \&] ,
+.Sq \&' ,
+.Sq \&" ) .
+.Pp
+The proper spacing is also intelligently preserved if a sentence ends at
+the boundary of a macro line.
+For example:
+.Pp
+.D1 \&Xr mandoc 1 \.
+.D1 \&Fl T \&Ns \&Cm ascii \.
+.Sh MANUAL STRUCTURE
+A well-formed
+.Nm
+document consists of a document prologue followed by one or more
+sections.
+.Pp
+The prologue, which consists of the
+.Sx \&Dd ,
+.Sx \&Dt ,
+and
+.Sx \&Os
+macros in that order, is required for every document.
+.Pp
+The first section (sections are denoted by
+.Sx \&Sh )
+must be the NAME section, consisting of at least one
+.Sx \&Nm
+followed by
+.Sx \&Nd .
+.Pp
+Following that, convention dictates specifying at least the
+.Em SYNOPSIS
+and
+.Em DESCRIPTION
+sections, although this varies between manual sections.
+.Pp
+The following is a well-formed skeleton
+.Nm
+file:
+.Bd -literal -offset indent
+\&.Dd $\&Mdocdate$
+\&.Dt mdoc 7
+\&.Os
+\&.Sh NAME
+\&.Nm foo
+\&.Nd a description goes here
+\&.\e\*q The next is for sections 2, 3, & 9 only.
+\&.\e\*q .Sh LIBRARY
+\&.Sh SYNOPSIS
+\&.Nm foo
+\&.Op Fl options
+\&.Ar
+\&.Sh DESCRIPTION
+The
+\&.Nm
+utility processes files ...
+\&.\e\*q .Sh IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
+\&.\e\*q The next is for sections 2, 3, & 9 only.
+\&.\e\*q .Sh RETURN VALUES
+\&.\e\*q The next is for sections 1, 6, 7, & 8 only.
+\&.\e\*q .Sh ENVIRONMENT
+\&.\e\*q .Sh FILES
+\&.\e\*q The next is for sections 1 & 8 only.
+\&.\e\*q .Sh EXIT STATUS
+\&.\e\*q .Sh EXAMPLES
+\&.\e\*q The next is for sections 1, 4, 6, 7, & 8 only.
+\&.\e\*q .Sh DIAGNOSTICS
+\&.\e\*q The next is for sections 2, 3, & 9 only.
+\&.\e\*q .Sh ERRORS
+\&.\e\*q .Sh SEE ALSO
+\&.\e\*q .Xr foobar 1
+\&.\e\*q .Sh STANDARDS
+\&.\e\*q .Sh HISTORY
+\&.\e\*q .Sh AUTHORS
+\&.\e\*q .Sh CAVEATS
+\&.\e\*q .Sh BUGS
+\&.\e\*q .Sh SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
+.Ed
+.Pp
+The sections in an
+.Nm
+document are conventionally ordered as they appear above.
+Sections should be composed as follows:
+.Bl -ohang -offset Ds
+.It Em NAME
+The name(s) and a one line description of the documented material.
+The syntax for this as follows:
+.Bd -literal -offset indent
+\&.Nm name0 ,
+\&.Nm name1 ,
+\&.Nm name2
+\&.Nd a one line description
+.Ed
+.Pp
+The
+.Sx \&Nm
+macro(s) must precede the
+.Sx \&Nd
+macro.
+.Pp
+See
+.Sx \&Nm
+and
+.Sx \&Nd .
+.It Em LIBRARY
+The name of the library containing the documented material, which is
+assumed to be a function in a section 2, 3, or 9 manual.
+The syntax for this is as follows:
+.Bd -literal -offset indent
+\&.Lb libarm
+.Ed
+.Pp
+See
+.Sx \&Lb .
+.It Em SYNOPSIS
+Documents the utility invocation syntax, function call syntax, or device
+configuration.
+.Pp
+For the first, utilities (sections 1, 6, and 8), this is
+generally structured as follows:
+.Bd -literal -offset indent
+\&.Nm foo
+\&.Op Fl v
+\&.Op Fl o Ar file
+\&.Op Ar
+\&.Nm bar
+\&.Op Fl v
+\&.Op Fl o Ar file
+\&.Op Ar
+.Ed
+.Pp
+For the second, function calls (sections 2, 3, 9):
+.Bd -literal -offset indent
+\&.In header.h
+\&.Vt extern const char *global;
+\&.Ft "char *"
+\&.Fn foo "const char *src"
+\&.Ft "char *"
+\&.Fn bar "const char *src"
+.Ed
+.Pp
+And for the third, configurations (section 4):
+.Bd -literal -offset indent
+\&.Cd \*qit* at isa? port 0x2e\*q
+\&.Cd \*qit* at isa? port 0x4e\*q
+.Ed
+.Pp
+Manuals not in these sections generally don't need a
+.Em SYNOPSIS .
+.Pp
+Some macros are displayed differently in the
+.Em SYNOPSIS
+section, particularly
+.Sx \&Nm ,
+.Sx \&Cd ,
+.Sx \&Fd ,
+.Sx \&Fn ,
+.Sx \&Fo ,
+.Sx \&In ,
+.Sx \&Vt ,
+and
+.Sx \&Ft .
+All of these macros are output on their own line.
+If two such dissimilar macros are pairwise invoked (except for
+.Sx \&Ft
+before
+.Sx \&Fo
+or
+.Sx \&Fn ) ,
+they are separated by a vertical space, unless in the case of
+.Sx \&Fo ,
+.Sx \&Fn ,
+and
+.Sx \&Ft ,
+which are always separated by vertical space.
+.Pp
+When text and macros following an
+.Sx \&Nm
+macro starting an input line span multiple output lines,
+all output lines but the first will be indented to align
+with the text immediately following the
+.Sx \&Nm
+macro, up to the next
+.Sx \&Nm ,
+.Sx \&Sh ,
+or
+.Sx \&Ss
+macro or the end of an enclosing block, whichever comes first.
+.It Em DESCRIPTION
+This expands upon the brief, one line description in
+.Em NAME .
+It usually contains a breakdown of the options (if documenting a
+command), such as:
+.Bd -literal -offset indent
+The arguments are as follows:
+\&.Bl \-tag \-width Ds
+\&.It Fl v
+Print verbose information.
+\&.El
+.Ed
+.Pp
+Manuals not documenting a command won't include the above fragment.
+.It Em IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
+Implementation-specific notes should be kept here.
+This is useful when implementing standard functions that may have side
+effects or notable algorithmic implications.
+.It Em RETURN VALUES
+This section documents the
+return values of functions in sections 2, 3, and 9.
+.Pp
+See
+.Sx \&Rv .
+.It Em ENVIRONMENT
+Lists the environment variables used by the utility,
+and explains the syntax and semantics of their values.
+The
+.Xr environ 7
+manual provides examples of typical content and formatting.
+.Pp
+See
+.Sx \&Ev .
+.It Em FILES
+Documents files used.
+It's helpful to document both the file name and a short description of how
+the file is used (created, modified, etc.).
+.Pp
+See
+.Sx \&Pa .
+.It Em EXIT STATUS
+This section documents the
+command exit status for section 1, 6, and 8 utilities.
+Historically, this information was described in
+.Em DIAGNOSTICS ,
+a practise that is now discouraged.
+.Pp
+See
+.Sx \&Ex .
+.It Em EXAMPLES
+Example usages.
+This often contains snippets of well-formed, well-tested invocations.
+Make sure that examples work properly!
+.It Em DIAGNOSTICS
+Documents error conditions.
+This is most useful in section 4 manuals.
+Historically, this section was used in place of
+.Em EXIT STATUS
+for manuals in sections 1, 6, and 8; however, this practise is
+discouraged.
+.Pp
+See
+.Sx \&Bl
+.Fl diag .
+.It Em ERRORS
+Documents error handling in sections 2, 3, and 9.
+.Pp
+See
+.Sx \&Er .
+.It Em SEE ALSO
+References other manuals with related topics.
+This section should exist for most manuals.
+Cross-references should conventionally be ordered first by section, then
+alphabetically.
+.Pp
+See
+.Sx \&Xr .
+.It Em STANDARDS
+References any standards implemented or used.
+If not adhering to any standards, the
+.Em HISTORY
+section should be used instead.
+.Pp
+See
+.Sx \&St .
+.It Em HISTORY
+A brief history of the subject, including where support first appeared.
+.It Em AUTHORS
+Credits to the person or persons who wrote the code and/or documentation.
+Authors should generally be noted by both name and email address.
+.Pp
+See
+.Sx \&An .
+.It Em CAVEATS
+Common misuses and misunderstandings should be explained
+in this section.
+.It Em BUGS
+Known bugs, limitations, and work-arounds should be described
+in this section.
+.It Em SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
+Documents any security precautions that operators should consider.
git.ckatri.com / mandoc.git / blobdiff