table of contents
other versions
- jessie-backports 4.10-2~bpo8+1
- stretch 4.10-2
- testing 4.16-1
- stretch-backports 4.16-1~bpo9+1
- unstable 4.16-1
MDOC.SAMPLES(7) | Miscellaneous Information Manual | MDOC.SAMPLES(7) |
NAME¶
mdoc.samples
—
tutorial sampler for writing
BSD manuals with
-mdoc
SYNOPSIS¶
man mdoc.samples |
DESCRIPTION¶
A tutorial sampler for writing BSD manual pages with the-mdoc
macro package, a
content-based and
domain-based formatting package for
troff(1). Its predecessor, the
-man(7) package, addressed page layout leaving
the manipulation of fonts and other typesetting details to the individual
author. In -mdoc
, page layout macros make
up the page structure domain which consists of
macros for titles, section headers, displays and lists. Essentially items
which affect the physical position of text on a formatted page. In addition to
the page structure domain, there are two more domains, the manual domain and
the general text domain. The general text domain is defined as macros which
perform tasks such as quoting or emphasizing pieces of text. The manual domain
is defined as macros that are a subset of the day to day informal language
used to describe commands, routines and related BSD
files. Macros in the manual domain handle command names, command-line
arguments and options, function names, function parameters, pathnames,
variables, cross references to other manual pages, and so on. These domain
items have value for both the author and the future user of the manual page.
It is hoped the consistency gained across the manual set will provide easier
translation to future documentation tools.
Throughout the UNIX manual pages, a manual entry is
simply referred to as a man page, regardless of actual length and without
sexist intention.
GETTING STARTED¶
Since a tutorial document is normally read when a person desires to use the material immediately, the assumption has been made that the user of this document may be impatient. The material presented in the remained of this document is outlined as follows:- TROFF IDIOSYNCRASIES
- Macro Usage.
- Passing Space Characters in an Argument.
- Trailing Blank Space Characters (a warning).
- Escaping Special Characters.
- THE ANATOMY OF A MAN PAGE
- A manual page template.
- TITLE MACROS.
- INTRODUCTION OF MANUAL AND GENERAL TEXT DOMAINS.
- What's in a name....
- General Syntax.
- MANUAL DOMAIN
- Addresses.
- Author name.
- Arguments.
- Configuration Declarations (section four only).
- Command Modifier.
- Defined Variables.
- Errno's (Section two only).
- Environment Variables.
- Function Argument.
- Function Declaration.
- Flags.
- Functions (library routines).
- Function Types.
- Interactive Commands.
- Names.
- Options.
- Pathnames.
- Variables.
- Cross References.
- GENERAL TEXT DOMAIN
- AT&T Macro.
- BSD Macro.
- FreeBSD Macro.
- UNIX Macro.
- Enclosure/Quoting Macros
-
- Angle Bracket Quote/Enclosure.
- Bracket Quotes/Enclosure.
- Double Quote macro/Enclosure.
- Parenthesis Quote/Enclosure.
- Single Quotes/Enclosure.
- Prefix Macro.
- No-Op or Normal Text Macro.
- No Space Macro.
- Section Cross References.
- References and Citations.
- Return Values (sections two and three only)
- Trade Names (Acronyms and Type Names).
- Extended Arguments.
- PAGE STRUCTURE DOMAIN
- Section Headers.
- Paragraphs and Line Spacing.
- Keeps.
- Displays.
- Font Modes (Emphasis, Literal, and Symbolic).
- Lists and Columns.
- PREDEFINED STRINGS
- DIAGNOSTICS
- FORMATTING WITH GROFF, TROFF AND NROFF
- BUGS
TROFF IDIOSYNCRASIES¶
The-mdoc
package attempts to simplify the
process of writing a man page. Theoretically, one should not have to learn the
dirty details of troff(1) to use
-mdoc
; however, there are a few limitations
which are unavoidable and best gotten out of the way. And, too, be forewarned,
this package is not fast.
Macro Usage¶
As in troff(1), a macro is called by placing a ‘.
’ (dot character) at the beginning of
a line followed by the two character name for the macro. Arguments may follow
the macro separated by spaces. It is the dot character at the beginning of the
line which causes troff(1) to interpret the next
two characters as a macro name. To place a
‘.
’ (dot character) at the beginning of
a line in some context other than a macro invocation, precede the
‘.
’ (dot) with the
‘\&
’ escape sequence. The
‘\&
’ translates literally to a zero
width space, and is never displayed in the output.
In general, troff(1) macros accept up to nine
arguments, any extra arguments are ignored. Most macros in
-mdoc
accept nine arguments and, in limited
cases, arguments may be continued or extended on the next line (See
Extensions). A few macros
handle quoted arguments (see
Passing
Space Characters in an Argument below).
Most of the -mdoc
general text domain and
manual domain macros are special in that their argument lists are
parsed for callable macro names. This means an
argument on the argument list which matches a general text or manual domain
macro name and is determined to be callable will be executed or called when it
is processed. In this case, the argument, although the name of a macro, is not
preceded by a ‘.
’ (dot). It is in this
manner that many macros are nested; for example the option macro,
‘.Op
’, may
call the flag and argument macros,
‘Fl
’ and
‘Ar
’, to specify an optional flag with
an argument:
- []
-s
bytes - is produced by
.Op Fl s Ar bytes
\&
’:
- [Fl s Ar bytes]
- is produced by
.Op \&Fl s \&Ar bytes
Fl
’ and
‘Ar
’ are not interpreted as macros.
Macros whose argument lists are parsed for callable arguments are referred to
as parsed and macros which may be called from an argument list are referred to
as callable throughout this document and in the companion quick reference
manual mdoc(7). This is a technical
faux pas as almost all of the macros in
-mdoc
are parsed, but as it was cumbersome
to constantly refer to macros as being callable and being able to call other
macros, the term parsed has been used.
Passing Space Characters in an Argument¶
Sometimes it is desirable to give as one argument a string containing one or more blank space characters. This may be necessary to defeat the nine argument limit or to specify arguments to macros which expect particular arrangement of items in the argument list. For example, the function macro ‘.Fn
’ expects the first argument to be
the name of a function and any remaining arguments to be function parameters.
As ANSI C stipulates the declaration of function parameters in the
parenthesized parameter list, each parameter is guaranteed to be at minimum a
two word string. For example, int foo.
There are two possible ways to pass an argument which contains an embedded
space. Implementation note: Unfortunately, the
most convenient way of passing spaces in between quotes by reassigning
individual arguments before parsing was fairly expensive speed wise and space
wise to implement in all the macros for AT&T
troff. It is not expensive for
groff but for the sake of portability, has been
limited to the following macros which need it the most:
Cd
- Configuration declaration (section 4 SYNOPSIS)
Bl
- Begin list (for the width specifier).
Em
- Emphasized text.
Fn
- Functions (sections two and four).
It
- List items.
Li
- Literal text.
Sy
- Symbolic text.
%B
- Book titles.
%J
- Journal names.
%O
- Optional notes for a reference.
%R
- Report title (in a reference).
%T
- Title of article in a book or journal.
\
’,
that is, a blank space preceded by the escape character
‘\
’. This method may be used with any
macro but has the side effect of interfering with the adjustment of text over
the length of a line. Troff sees the hard space
as if it were any other printable character and cannot split the string into
blank or newline separated pieces as one would expect. The method is useful
for strings which are not expected to overlap a line boundary. For example:
fetch
(char *str)- is created by ‘
.Fn fetch char\ *str
’ fetch
(char *str)- can also be created by ‘
.Fn fetch \*qchar *str\*q
’
\
’ or quotes were omitted,
‘.Fn
’ would see three arguments and the
result would be:
fetch
(char,
*str)
Trailing Blank Space Characters¶
Troff can be confused by blank space characters at the end of a line. It is a wise preventive measure to globally remove all blank spaces from <blank-space><end-of-line> character sequences. Should the need arise to force a blank character at the end of a line, it may be forced with an unpaddable space and the ‘\&
’ escape character. For example,
‘string\ \&
’.
Escaping Special Characters¶
Special characters like the newline character ‘\n
’, are handled by replacing the
‘\
’ with
‘\e
’ (e.g.,
‘\en
’) to preserve the backslash.
THE ANATOMY OF A MAN PAGE¶
The body of a man page is easily constructed from a basic template found in the file /usr/share/misc/mdoc.template. Several example man pages can also be found in /usr/share/examples/mdoc.A manual page template¶
.\" The following requests are required for all man pages. .Dd Month day, year .Os OPERATING_SYSTEM [version/release] .Dt DOCUMENT_TITLE [section number] [volume] .Sh NAME .Nm name .Nd one line description of name .Sh SYNOPSIS .Sh DESCRIPTION .\" The following requests should be uncommented and .\" used where appropriate. This next request is .\" for sections 2 and 3 function return values only. .\" .Sh RETURN VALUE .\" This next request is for sections 1, 6, 7 & 8 only .\" .Sh ENVIRONMENT .\" .Sh FILES .\" .Sh EXAMPLES .\" This next request is for sections 1, 6, 7 & 8 only .\" (command return values (to shell) and .\" fprintf/stderr type diagnostics) .\" .Sh DIAGNOSTICS .\" The next request is for sections 2 and 3 error .\" and signal handling only. .\" .Sh ERRORS .\" .Sh SEE ALSO .\" .Sh CONFORMING TO .\" .Sh HISTORY .\" .Sh AUTHORS .\" .Sh BUGS
.Dd
,
.Os
, .Dt
); the document date,
the operating system the man page or subject source is developed or modified
for, and the man page title (in uppercase) along
with the section of the manual the page belongs in. These macros identify the
page, and are discussed below in
TITLE MACROS.
The remaining items in the template are section headers
(.Sh
); of which
NAME,
SYNOPSIS and
DESCRIPTION are mandatory.
The headers are discussed in
PAGE STRUCTURE
DOMAIN, after presentation of
MANUAL DOMAIN. Several
content macros are used to demonstrate page layout macros; reading about
content macros before page layout macros is recommended.
TITLE MACROS¶
The title macros are the first portion of the page structure domain, but are presented first and separate for someone who wishes to start writing a man page yesterday. Three header macros designate the document title or manual page title, the operating system, and the date of authorship. These macros are one called once at the very beginning of the document and are used to construct the headers and footers only..Dt DOCUMENT_TITLE section# [volume]
- The document title is the subject of the man page and must be in CAPITALS
due to troff limitations. The section number may be
1, ..., 8, and if it is specified, the volume title may be
omitted. A volume title may be arbitrary or one of the following:
AMD
UNIX Ancestral Manual Documents SMM
UNIX System Manager's Manual URM
UNIX Reference Manual PRM
UNIX Programmer's Manual URM
for sections 1, 6, and 7;SMM
for section 8;PRM
for sections 2, 3, 4, and 5. .Os operating_system release#
- The name of the operating system should be the common acronym, for
example, BSD or FreeBSD or ATT. The release should be the standard release
nomenclature for the system specified, for example, 4.3, 4.3+Tahoe, V.3,
V.4. Unrecognized arguments are displayed as given in the page footer. For
instance, a typical footer might be:
or
.Os 4.3BSD
or for a locally produced set.Os FreeBSD 2.2
The Berkeley default, ‘.Os CS Department
.Os
’ without an argument, has been defined as BSD in the site-specific file /usr/share/tmac/mdoc/doc-common. It really should default to LOCAL. Note, if the ‘.Os
’ macro is not present, the bottom left corner of the page will be ugly. .Dd month day, year
- The date should be written formally:
January 25, 1989
INTRODUCTION OF MANUAL AND GENERAL TEXT DOMAINS¶
What's in a name...¶
The manual domain macro names are derived from the day to day informal language used to describe commands, subroutines and related files. Slightly different variations of this language are used to describe the three different aspects of writing a man page. First, there is the description of-mdoc
macro request usage. Second is the
description of a UNIX command
with -mdoc
macros and third, the description of a command to a user in the verbal sense;
that is, discussion of a command in the text of a man page.
In the first case, troff(1) macros are themselves a
type of command; the general syntax for a troff command is:
.Va argument1 argument2 ... argument9
The ‘.Va
’ is a macro command or request,
and anything following it is an argument to be processed. In the second case,
the description of a UNIX command using the content
macros is a bit more involved; a typical
SYNOPSIS command line might be
displayed as:
filter
[-flag
filter
is the command name and the
bracketed string -flag
is a
flag argument designated as optional by the
option brackets. In -mdoc
terms,
infile and
outfile are called
arguments. The macros which formatted the above
example:
.Nm filter .Op Fl flag .Ar infile outfile
make
- [] [
-eiknqrstv
] [-D
variable] [-d
flags] [-f
makefile] [-I
directory] [-j
max_jobsvariable=value] [target ...]
make
and qualify the argument makefile, as an
argument to the flag, -f
, or discuss the
optional file operand target. In the verbal
context, such detail can prevent confusion, however the
-mdoc
package does not have a macro for an
argument to a flag. Instead the
‘Ar
’ argument macro is used for an
operand or file argument like target as well
as an argument to a flag like variable. The
make command line was produced from:
.Nm make .Op Fl eiknqrstv .Op Fl D Ar variable .Op Fl d Ar flags .Op Fl f Ar makefile .Op Fl I Ar directory .Op Fl j Ar max_jobs .Op Ar variable=value .Bk -words .Op Ar target ... .Ek
.Bk
’ and
‘.Ek
’ macros are explained in
Keeps.
General Syntax¶
The manual domain and general text domain macros share a similar syntax with a few minor deviations: ‘.Ar
’,
‘.Fl
’,
‘.Nm
’, and
‘.Pa
’ differ only when called without
arguments; ‘.Fn
’ and
‘.Xr
’ impose an order on their argument
lists and the ‘.Op
’ and
‘.Fn
’ macros have nesting limitations.
All content macros are capable of recognizing and properly handling
punctuation, provided each punctuation character is separated by a leading
space. If a request is given:
.Li sptr, ptr),
sptr,
ptr),
.Li sptr , ptr ) ,
sptr
,
ptr
),
\&
’.
Troff is limited as a macro language, and has
difficulty when presented with a string containing a member of the
mathematical, logical or quotation set:
{+,-,/,*,%,<,>,<=,>=,=,==,&,`,',"}
\&
’. Typical syntax is shown in the
first content macro displayed below,
‘.Ad
’.
MANUAL DOMAIN¶
Address Macro¶
The address macro identifies an address construct of the form addr1[,addr2[,addr3]].Usage: .Ad address ...
[.,:;()[]?!]
.Ad addr1
- addr1
.Ad addr1 .
- addr1.
.Ad addr1 , file2
- addr1, file2
.Ad f1 , f2 , f3 :
- f1, f2, f3:
.Ad addr ) ) ,
- addr)),
.Ad
’ without
arguments. ‘.Ad
’ is callable by other
macros and is parsed.
Author Name¶
The ‘.An
’ macro is used to specify the
name of the author of the item being documented, or the name of the author of
the actual manual page. Any remaining arguments after the name information are
assumed to be punctuation.
Usage: .An author_name
[.,:;()[]?!]
.An Joe Author
- Joe Author
.An Joe Author ,
- Joe Author,
.An Joe Author Aq nobody@FreeBSD.ORG
- Joe Author ⟨nobody@FreeBSD.ORG⟩
.An Joe Author ) ) ,
- Joe Author)),
.An
’ macro is parsed and is callable.
It is an error to call ‘.An
’ without any
arguments.
Argument Macro¶
The ‘.Ar
’ argument macro may be used
whenever a command-line argument is referenced.
Usage: .Ar argument ...
[.,:;()[]?!]
.Ar
- file ...
.Ar file1
- file1
.Ar file1 .
- file1.
.Ar file1 file2
- file1 file2
.Ar f1 f2 f3 :
- f1 f2 f3:
.Ar file ) ) ,
- file)),
.Ar
’ is called without arguments,
‘Ar
’ is assumed. The
‘.Ar
’ macro is parsed and is callable.
Configuration Declaration (section four only)¶
The ‘.Cd
’ macro is used to demonstrate a
config(8) declaration for a device interface in a
section four manual. This macro accepts quoted arguments (double quotes only).
device le0 at scode?
- produced by: ‘
.Cd device le0 at scode?
’.
Command Modifier¶
The command modifier is identical to the ‘.Fl
’ (flag) command with the exception
the ‘.Cm
’ macro does not assert a dash
in front of every argument. Traditionally flags are marked by the preceding
dash, some commands or subsets of commands do not use them. Command modifiers
may also be specified in conjunction with interactive commands such as editor
commands. See Flags.
Defined Variables¶
A variable which is defined in an include file is specified by the macro ‘.Dv
’.
Usage: .Dv defined_variable ...
[.,:;()[]?!]
.Dv
’ without
arguments. ‘.Dv
’ is parsed and is
callable.
Errno's (Section two only)¶
The ‘.Er
’ errno macro specifies the error
return value for section two library routines. The second example below shows
‘.Er
’ used with the
‘.Bq
’ general text domain macro, as it
would be used in a section two manual page.
Usage: .Er ERRNOTYPE ...
[.,:;()[]?!]
.Er ENOENT
ENOENT
.Er ENOENT ) ;
ENOENT
);.Bq Er ENOTDIR
- [
ENOTDIR
]
.Er
’ without
arguments. The ‘.Er
’ macro is parsed and
is callable.
Environment Variables¶
The ‘.Ev
’ macro specifies an environment
variable.
Usage: .Ev argument ...
[.,:;()[]?!]
.Ev
’ without
arguments. The ‘.Ev
’ macro is parsed and
is callable.
Function Argument¶
The ‘.Fa
’ macro is used to refer to
function arguments (parameters) outside of the
SYNOPSIS section of the manual
or inside the SYNOPSIS section
should a parameter list be too long for the
‘.Fn
’ macro and the enclosure macros
‘.Fo
’ and
‘.Fc
’ must be used.
‘.Fa
’ may also be used to refer to
structure members.
Usage: .Fa function_argument ...
[.,:;()[]?!]
.Fa d_namlen ) ) ,
- d_namlen)),
.Fa iov_len
- iov_len
.Fa
’ without
arguments. ‘.Fa
’ is parsed and is
callable.
Function Declaration¶
The ‘.Fd
’ macro is used in the
SYNOPSIS section with section
two or three functions. The ‘.Fd
’ macro
does not call other macros and is not callable by other macros.
Usage: .Fd include_file (or defined
variable)
.Fd
’ request causes a line break if a
function has already been presented and a break has not occurred. This leaves
a nice vertical space in between the previous function call and the
declaration for the next function.
Flags¶
The ‘.Fl
’ macro handles command-line
flags. It prepends a dash, ‘-
’, to the
flag. For interactive command flags, which are not prepended with a dash, the
‘.Cm
’ (command modifier) macro is
identical, but without the dash.
Usage: .Fl argument ...
[.,:;()[]?!]
.Fl
’ macro without any arguments
results in a dash representing stdin/stdout. Note that giving
‘.Fl
’ a single dash, will result in two
dashes. The ‘.Fl
’ macro is parsed and is
callable.
Functions (library routines)¶
The .Fn macro is modeled on ANSI C conventions.Usage: .Fn [type] function [[type] parameters ... [ .,:;()[]?! ]]
.Fn getchar
getchar
().Fn strlen ) ,
strlen
()),.Fn \*qint align\*q \*qconst * char *sptrs\*q
,- int
align
(const * char *sptrs),
.Fn
’ without any
arguments. The ‘.Fn
’ macro is parsed and
is callable, note that any call to another macro signals the end of the
‘.Fn
’ call (it will close-parenthesis at
that point).
For functions that have more than eight parameters (and this is rare), the
macros ‘.Fo
’ (function open) and
‘.Fc
’ (function close) may be used with
‘.Fa
’ (function argument) to get around
the limitation. For example:
.Fo "int res_mkquery" .Fa "int op" .Fa "char *dname" .Fa "int class" .Fa "int type" .Fa "char *data" .Fa "int datalen" .Fa "struct rrec *newrr" .Fa "char *buf" .Fa "int buflen" .Fc
int
res_mkquery
(int op,
char *dname, int
class, int type,
char *data, int
datalen, struct rrec *newrr,
char *buf, int
buflen);.Fo
’ and
‘.Fc
’ macros are parsed and are
callable. In the SYNOPSIS
section, the function will always begin at the beginning of line. If there is
more than one function presented in the
SYNOPSIS section and a function
type has not been given, a line break will occur, leaving a nice vertical
space between the current function name and the one prior. At the moment,
‘.Fn
’ does not check its word boundaries
against troff line lengths and may split across a newline ungracefully. This
will be fixed in the near future.
Function Type¶
This macro is intended for the SYNOPSIS section. It may be used anywhere else in the man page without problems, but its main purpose is to present the function type in kernel normal form for the SYNOPSIS of sections two and three (it causes a line break allowing the function name to appear on the next line).Usage: .Ft type ...
[.,:;()[]?!]
.Ft struct stat
- struct stat
.Ft
’ request is not callable by other
macros.
Interactive Commands¶
The ‘.Ic
’ macro designates an interactive
or internal command.
Usage: .Ic argument ...
[.,:;()[]?!]
.Ic
’ without
arguments. The ‘.Ic
’ macro is parsed and
is callable.
Name Macro¶
The ‘.Nm
’ macro is used for the document
title or subject name. It has the peculiarity of remembering the first
argument it was called with, which should always be the subject name of the
page. When called without arguments,
‘.Nm
’ regurgitates this initial name for
the sole purpose of making less work for the author. Note: a section two or
three document function name is addressed with the
‘.Nm
’ in the
NAME section, and with
‘.Fn
’ in the
SYNOPSIS and remaining sections.
For interactive commands, such as the
‘while
’ command keyword in
csh(1), the
‘.Ic
’ macro should be used. While the
‘.Ic
’ is nearly identical to
‘.Nm
’, it can not recall the first
argument it was invoked with.
Usage: .Nm argument ...
[.,:;()[]?!]
.Nm mdoc.sample
mdoc.sample
.Nm \-mdoc
-mdoc
..Nm foo ) ) ,
foo
)),.Nm
mdoc.samples
.Nm
’ macro is parsed and is callable.
Options¶
The ‘.Op
’ macro places option brackets
around the any remaining arguments on the command line, and places any
trailing punctuation outside the brackets. The macros
‘.Oc
’ and
‘.Oo
’ may be used across one or more
lines.
Usage: .Op options ...
[.,:;()[]?!]
.Op
- []
.Op Fl k
- []
-k
.Op Fl k ) .
- []).
-k
.Op Fl k Ar kookfile
- []
-k
kookfile .Op Fl k Ar kookfile ,
- [],
-k
kookfile .Op Ar objfil Op Ar corfil
- [objfil []corfil]
.Op Fl c Ar objfil Op Ar corfil ,
- [],
-c
objfil [corfil] .Op word1 word2
- [word1 word2]
.Oc
’ and
‘.Oo
’ macros:
.Oo .Op Fl k Ar kilobytes .Op Fl i Ar interval .Op Fl c Ar count .Oc
[]
[]
[]
]
The macros ‘-k
kilobytes-i
interval-c
count.Op
’,
‘.Oc
’ and
‘.Oo
’ are parsed and are callable.
Pathnames¶
The ‘.Pa
’ macro formats pathnames or
filenames.
Usage: .Pa pathname
[.,:;()[]?!]
.Pa /usr/share
- /usr/share
.Pa /tmp/fooXXXXX ) .
- /tmp/fooXXXXX).
.Pa
’ macro is parsed and is callable.
Variables¶
Generic variable reference:Usage: .Va variable ...
[.,:;()[]?!]
.Va count
- count
.Va settimer
,- settimer,
.Va int *prt ) :
- int *prt):
.Va char s ] ) ) ,
- char s])),
.Va
’ without any
arguments. The ‘.Va
’ macro is parsed and
is callable.
Manual Page Cross References¶
The ‘.Xr
’ macro expects the first argument
to be a manual page name, and the second argument, if it exists, to be either
a section page number or punctuation. Any remaining arguments are assumed to
be punctuation.
Usage: .Xr man_page [1,...,8]
[.,:;()[]?!]
.Xr
’ macro is parsed and is callable.
It is an error to call ‘.Xr
’ without any
arguments.
GENERAL TEXT DOMAIN¶
AT&T Macro¶
Usage: .At [v6 | v7 | 32v | V.1 | V.4] ... [ .,:;()[]?! ]
.At
’ macro is
not parsed and not
callable It accepts at most two arguments.
BSD Macro¶
Usage: .Bx [Version/release] ...
[.,:;()[]?!]
.Bx
’ macro is parsed and is callable.
FreeBSD Macro¶
Usage: .Fx Version.release ... [ .,:;()[]?! ]
.Fx 2.2 .
- FreeBSD 2.2.
.Fx
’ macro is
not parsed and not
callable It accepts at most two arguments.
UNIX Macro¶
Usage: .Ux ...
[.,:;()[]?!]
.Ux
- UNIX
.Ux
’ macro is parsed and is callable.
Enclosure and Quoting Macros¶
The concept of enclosure is similar to quoting. The object being to enclose one or more strings between a pair of characters like quotes or parentheses. The terms quoting and enclosure are used interchangeably throughout this document. Most of the one line enclosure macros end in small letter ‘q
’ to give a hint of quoting, but there
are a few irregularities. For each enclosure macro there is also a pair of
open and close macros which end in small letters
‘o
’ and
‘c
’ respectively. These can be used
across one or more lines of text and while they have nesting limitations, the
one line quote macros can be used inside of them.
Quote | Close | Open | Function | Result | |
.Aq | .Ac | .Ao | Angle Bracket Enclosure | <string> | |
.Bq | .Bc | .Bo | Bracket Enclosure | [string] | |
.Dq | .Dc | .Do | Double Quote | ``string'' | |
.Ec | .Eo | Enclose String (in XX) | XXstringXX | ||
.Pq | .Pc | .Po | Parenthesis Enclosure | (string) | |
.Ql | Quoted Literal | `st' or string | |||
.Qc | .Qo | Straight Double Quote | string | ||
.Sq | .Sc | .So | Single Quote | `string' |
.Ec
,.Eo
- These macros expect the first argument to be the opening and closing strings respectively.
.Ql
- The quoted literal macro behaves differently for troff than nroff. If formatted with nroff, a quoted literal is always quoted. If formatted with troff, an item is quoted only if the width of the item is less than three constant width characters. This is to make short strings more visible where the font change to literal (constant width) is less noticeable.
.Pf
- The prefix macro is not callable, but it is parsed:
.Pf ( Fa name2
- becomes (name2.
.Ns
’ (no space) macro performs the analogous suffix function.
.Aq
- ⟨⟩
.Aq Ar ctype.h ) ,
- ⟨ctype.h⟩),
.Bq
- []
.Bq Em Greek , French .
- [Greek, French].
.Dq
- “”
.Dq string abc .
- “string abc”.
.Dq ´^[A-Z]´
- “´^[A-Z]´”
.Ql man mdoc
- ‘
man mdoc
’ .Qq
- “”
.Qq string ) ,
- “string”),
.Qq string Ns ),
- “string),”
.Sq
- ‘’
.Sq string
- ‘string’
.Op
’ option macro. It was created from
the same underlying enclosure macros as those presented in the list above. The
‘.Xo
’ and
‘.Xc
’ extended argument list macros were
also built from the same underlying routines and are a good example of
-mdoc
macro usage at its worst.
No-Op or Normal Text Macro¶
The macro ‘.No
’ is a hack for words in a
macro command line which should not be formatted
and follows the conventional syntax for content macros.
Space Macro¶
The ‘.Ns
’ macro eliminates unwanted spaces
in between macro requests. It is useful for old style argument lists where
there is no space between the flag and argument:
.Op Fl I Ns Ar directory
- produces
[]
-I
directory
.Ns
’ macro always invokes the
‘.No
’ macro after eliminating the space
unless another macro name follows it. The macro
‘.Ns
’ is parsed and is callable.
Section Cross References¶
The ‘.Sx
’ macro designates a reference to
a section header within the same document. It is parsed and is callable.
References and Citations¶
The following macros make a modest attempt to handle references. At best, the macros make it convenient to manually drop in a subset of refer style references..Rs
- Reference Start. Causes a line break and begins collection of reference information until the reference end macro is read.
.Re
- Reference End. The reference is printed.
.%A
- Reference author name, one name per invocation.
.%B
- Book title.
.%C
- City/place.
.%D
- Date.
.%J
- Journal name.
.%N
- Issue number.
.%O
- Optional information.
.%P
- Page number.
.%R
- Report name.
.%T
- Title of article.
.%V
- Volume(s).
%
’ are not
callable, and are parsed only for the trade name macro which returns to its
caller. (And not very predictably at the moment either.) The purpose is to
allow trade names to be pretty printed in
troff/ditroff
output.
Return Values¶
The ‘.Rv
’ macro generates text for use in
the RETURN VALUE section.
Usage: .Rv [-std
function]
.Rv -std atexit
’ will generate the
following text:
The
atexit
() function returns the
value 0 if successful; otherwise the value -1 is returned and
the global variable errno is set to indicate
the error.
The -std
option is valid only for manual page
sections 2 and 3.
Trade Names (or Acronyms and Type Names)¶
The trade name macro is generally a small caps macro for all uppercase words longer than two characters.Usage: .Tn symbol ...
[.,:;()[]?!]
.Tn
’ macro is parsed and is callable
by other macros.
Extended Arguments¶
The ‘.Xo
’ and
‘.Xc
’ macros allow one to extend an
argument list on a macro boundary. Argument lists cannot be extended within a
macro which expects all of its arguments on one line such as
‘.Op
’.
Here is an example of ‘.Xo
’ using the
space mode macro to turn spacing off:
.Sm off .It Xo Sy I Ar operation .No \en Ar count No \en .Xc .Sm on
- Ioperation\ncount\n
.Sm off .It Cm S No / Ar old_pattern Xo .No / Ar new_pattern .No / Op Cm g .Xc .Sm on
S
/old_pattern/new_pattern/[]g
.Xo
’ and using
enclosure macros: Test the value of a variable.
.It Xo .Ic .ifndef .Oo \&! Oc Ns Ar variable .Op Ar operator variable ... .Xc
.ifndef
[!]variable [operator variable ...]
.Xo
’ macro on the argument list of the
‘.It
’ (list-item) macro. The extend
macros are not used very often, and when they are it is usually to extend the
list-item argument list. Unfortunately, this is also where the extend macros
are the most finicky. In the first two examples, spacing was turned off; in
the third, spacing was desired in part of the output but not all of it. To
make these macros work in this situation make sure the
‘.Xo
’ and
‘.Xc
’ macros are placed as shown in the
third example. If the ‘.Xo
’ macro is not
alone on the ‘.It
’ argument list,
spacing will be unpredictable. The ‘.Ns
’
(no space macro) must not occur as the first or last macro on a line in this
situation. Out of 900 manual pages (about 1500 actual pages) currently
released with BSD only fifteen use the
‘.Xo
’ macro.
PAGE STRUCTURE DOMAIN¶
Section Headers¶
The first three ‘.Sh
’ section header
macros list below are required in every man page. The remaining section
headers are recommended at the discretion of the author writing the manual
page. The ‘.Sh
’ macro can take up to
nine arguments. It is parsed and but is not callable.
- .Sh NAME
- The ‘
.Sh NAME
’ macro is mandatory. If not specified, the headers, footers and page layout defaults will not be set and things will be rather unpleasant. The NAME section consists of at least three items. The first is the ‘.Nm
’ name macro naming the subject of the man page. The second is the Name Description macro, ‘.Nd
’, which separates the subject name from the third item, which is the description. The description should be the most terse and lucid possible, as the space available is small. - .Sh SYNOPSIS
- The SYNOPSIS section
describes the typical usage of the subject of a man page. The macros
required are either ‘
.Nm
’, ‘.Cd
’, ‘.Fn
’, (and possibly ‘.Fo
’, ‘.Fc
’, ‘.Fd
’, ‘.Ft
’ macros). The function name macro ‘.Fn
’ is required for manual page sections 2 and 3, the command and general name macro ‘.Nm
’ is required for sections 1, 5, 6, 7, 8. Section 4 manuals require a ‘.Nm
’, ‘.Fd
’ or a ‘.Cd
’ configuration device usage macro. Several other macros may be necessary to produce the synopsis line as shown below:
cat
[-benstuv
-
.Nm cat
.Op Fl benstuv
.Op Fl
.Ar
.Op
’,
‘.Fl
’, and
‘.Ar
’ recognize the pipe bar character
‘|
’, so a command line such as:
.Op Fl a | Fl b
- .Sh DESCRIPTION
- In most cases the first text in the
DESCRIPTION section is a
brief paragraph on the command, function or file, followed by a lexical
list of options and respective explanations. To create such a list, the
‘
.Bl
’ begin-list, ‘.It
’ list-item and ‘.El
’ end-list macros are used (see Lists and Columns below).
.Sh
’ section headers are
part of the preferred manual page layout and must be used appropriately to
maintain consistency. They are listed in the order in which they would be
used.
- .Sh ENVIRONMENT
- The ENVIRONMENT section should reveal any related environment variables and clues to their behavior and/or usage.
- .Sh EXAMPLES
- There are several ways to create examples. See the EXAMPLES section below for details.
- .Sh FILES
- Files which are used or created by the man page subject should be listed
via the ‘
.Pa
’ macro in the FILES section. - .Sh SEE ALSO
- References to other material on the man page topic and cross references to
other relevant man pages should be placed in the
SEE ALSO section. Cross
references are specified using the
‘
.Xr
’ macro. Cross references in the SEE ALSO section should be sorted by section number, and then placed in alphabetical order and comma separated. For example: ls(1), ps(1), group(5), passwd(5). At this time refer(1) style references are not accommodated. - .Sh CONFORMING TO
- If the command, library function or file adheres to a specific implementation such as IEEE Std 1003.2 (“POSIX.2”) or ANSI X3.159-1989 (“ANSI C89”) this should be noted here. If the command does not adhere to any standard, its history should be noted in the HISTORY section.
- .Sh HISTORY
- Any command which does not adhere to any specific standards should be outlined historically in this section.
- .Sh AUTHORS
- Credits, if need be, should be placed here.
- .Sh DIAGNOSTICS
- Diagnostics from a command should be placed in this section.
- .Sh ERRORS
- Specific error handling, especially from library functions (man page
sections 2 and 3) should go here. The
‘
.Er
’ macro is used to specify an errno. - .Sh BUGS
- Blatant problems with the topic go here...
.Sh
’ sections may be
added, for example, this section was set with:
.Sh PAGE STRUCTURE DOMAIN
Paragraphs and Line Spacing.¶
- .Pp
- The ‘
.Pp
’ paragraph command may be used to specify a line space where necessary. The macro is not necessary after a ‘.Sh
’ or ‘.Ss
’ macro or before a ‘.Bl
’ macro. (The ‘.Bl
’ macro asserts a vertical distance unless the -compact flag is given).
Keeps¶
The only keep that is implemented at this time is for words. The macros are ‘.Bk
’ (begin-keep) and
‘.Ek
’ (end-keep). The only option that
‘.Bk
’ accepts is
-words
and is useful for preventing line
breaks in the middle of options. In the example for the make command-line
arguments (see What's in a
name), the keep prevented nroff from placing
up the flag and the argument on separate lines. (Actually, the option macro
used to prevent this from occurring, but was dropped when the decision
(religious) was made to force right justified margins in
troff as options in general look atrocious when
spread across a sparse line. More work needs to be done with the keep macros,
a -line
option needs to be added.)
Examples and Displays¶
There are five types of displays, a quickie one line indented display ‘.D1
’, a quickie one line literal
display ‘.Dl
’, and a block literal,
block filled and block ragged which use the
‘.Bd
’ begin-display and
‘.Ed
’ end-display macros.
.D1
- (D-one) Display one line of indented text. This macro is parsed, but it is
not callable.
The above was produced by:
-ldghfstru
.Dl
-ldghfstru
. .Dl
- (D-ell) Display one line of indented literal
text. The ‘
.Dl
’ example macro has been used throughout this file. It allows the indent (display) of one line of text. Its default font is set to constant width (literal) however it is parsed and will recognized other macros. It is not callable however.The above was produced by% ls -ldg /usr/local/bin
.Dl % ls -ldg /usr/local/bin
. .Bd
- Begin-display. The ‘
.Bd
’ display must be ended with the ‘.Ed
’ macro. Displays may be nested within displays and lists. ‘.Bd
’ has the following syntax:The display-type must be one of the following four types and may have an offset specifier for indentation: ‘.Bd display-type [-offset offset_value] [-compact]
.Bd
’.
-ragged
- Display a block of text as typed, right (and left) margin edges are left ragged.
-filled
- Display a filled (formatted) block. The block of text is formatted (the edges are filled - not left unjustified).
-literal
- Display a literal block, useful for source code or simple tabbed or spaced text.
-file
file_name- The filename following the
-file
flag is read and displayed. Literal mode is asserted and tabs are set at 8 constant width character intervals, however any troff/-mdoc
commands in file will be processed. -offset
string- If
-offset
is specified with one of the following strings, the string is interpreted to indicate the level of indentation for the forthcoming block of text:- left
- Align block on the current left margin, this is the default mode of
‘
.Bd
’. - center
- Supposedly center the block. At this time unfortunately, the block merely gets left aligned about an imaginary center margin.
- indent
- Indents by one default indent value or tab. The default indent value
is also used for the ‘
.D1
’ display so one is guaranteed the two types of displays will line up. This indent is normally set to 6n or about two thirds of an inch (six constant width characters). - indent-two
- Indents two times the default indent value.
- right
- This left aligns the block about two inches from the right side of the page. This macro needs work and perhaps may never do the right thing by troff.
- .Ed
- End-display.
Font Modes¶
There are five macros for changing the appearance of the manual page text:- .Em
- Text may be stressed or emphasized with the
‘
.Em
’ macro. The usual font for emphasis is italic.Usage: .Em argument ... [.,:;()[]?!]
.Em does not
- does not
.Em exceed 1024 .
- exceed 1024.
.Em vide infra ) ) ,
- vide infra)),
.Em
’ macro is parsed and is callable. It is an error to call ‘.Em
’ without arguments. - .Li
- The ‘
.Li
’ literal macro may be used for special characters, variable constants, anything which should be displayed as it would be typed.The ‘Usage: .Li argument ... [.,:;()[]?!]
.Li
’ macro is parsed and is callable. - .Sy
- The symbolic emphasis macro is generally a boldface macro in either the
symbolic sense or the traditional English usage.
Usage: .Sy symbol ... [.,:;()[]?!]
.Sy Important Notice
- Important Notice
The ‘
.Sy
’ macro is parsed and is callable. Arguments to ‘.Sy
’ may be quoted.
.Bf
- Begin font mode. The ‘
.Bf
’ font mode must be ended with the ‘.Ef
’ macro. Font modes may be nested within other font modes. ‘.Bf
’ has the following syntax:The font-mode must be one of the following three types: ‘.Bf font-mode
.Bf
’. - .Ef
- End font mode.
Tagged Lists and Columns¶
There are several types of lists which may be initiated with the ‘.Bl
’ begin-list macro. Items within the
list are specified with the ‘.It
’ item
macro and each list must end with the
‘.El
’ macro. Lists may be nested within
themselves and within displays. Columns may be used inside of lists, but lists
are unproven inside of columns.
In addition, several list attributes may be specified such as the width of a
tag, the list offset, and compactness (blank lines between items allowed or
disallowed). Most of this document has been formatted with a tag style list
(-tag
). For a change of pace, the list-type
used to present the list-types is an over-hanging list
(-ohang
). This type of list is quite
popular with TeX users, but might look a bit funny after having read many
pages of tagged lists. The following list types are accepted by
‘.Bl
’:
-bullet
-item
-enum
- These three are the simplest types of lists. Once the
‘
.Bl
’ macro has been given, items in the list are merely indicated by a line consisting solely of the ‘.It
’ macro. For example, the source text for a simple enumerated list would look like:.Bl -enum -compact .It Item one goes here. .It And item two here. .It Lastly item three goes here. .El
- Item one goes here.
- And item two here.
- Lastly item three goes here.
.Bl -bullet -compact .It Bullet one goes here. .It Bullet two here. .El
- Bullet one goes here.
- Bullet two here.
-tag
-diag
-hang
-ohang
-inset
- These list-types collect arguments specified with the
‘
.It
’ macro and create a label which may be inset into the forthcoming text, hanged from the forthcoming text, overhanged from above and not indented or tagged. This list was constructed with the ‘Fl ohang
’ list-type. The ‘.It
’ macro is parsed only for the inset, hang and tag list-types and is not callable. Here is an example of inset labels:
- Tag
- The tagged list (also called a tagged paragraph) is the most common type of list used in the Berkeley manuals.
- Diag
- Diag lists create section four diagnostic lists and are similar to inset lists except callable macros are ignored.
- Hang
- Hanged labels are a matter of taste.
- Ohang
- Overhanging labels are nice when space is constrained.
- Inset
- Inset labels are useful for controlling blocks of paragraphs and are
valuable for converting
-mdoc
manuals to other formats.
.Bl -inset -offset indent .It Em Tag The tagged list (also called a tagged paragraph) is the most common type of list used in the Berkeley manuals. .It Em Diag Diag lists create section four diagnostic lists and are similar to inset lists except callable macros are ignored. .It Em Hang Hanged labels are a matter of taste. .It Em Ohang Overhanging labels are nice when space is constrained. .It Em Inset Inset labels are useful for controlling blocks of paragraphs and are valuable for converting .Nm -mdoc manuals to other formats. .El
- Hanged
- labels appear similar to tagged lists when the label is smaller than the label width.
- Longer hanged list labels
- blend in to the paragraph unlike tagged paragraph labels.
.Bl -hang -offset indent .It Em Hanged labels appear similar to tagged lists when the label is smaller than the label width. .It Em Longer hanged list labels blend in to the paragraph unlike tagged paragraph labels. .El
- SL
- sleep time of the process (seconds blocked)
- PAGEIN
- number of disk I/O's resulting from references by the process to pages not loaded in core.
- UID
- numerical user-id of process owner
- PPID
- numerical ID of parent of process process priority (nonpositive when in noninterruptible wait)
.Bl -tag -width "PAGEIN" -compact -offset indent .It SL sleep time of the process (seconds blocked) .It PAGEIN number of disk .Tn I/O Ns 's resulting from references by the process to pages not loaded in core. .It UID numerical user ID of process owner .It PPID numerical ID of parent of process process priority (nonpositive when in noninterruptible wait) .El
-width
Fl- sets the width to the default width for a flag. All callable macros have a
default width value. The ‘
.Fl
’, value is presently set to ten constant width characters or about five sixth of an inch. -width
24n- sets the width to 24 constant width characters or about two inches. The
‘
n
’ is absolutely necessary for the scaling to work correctly. -width
ENAMETOOLONG- sets width to the constant width length of the string given.
-width
\*qint mkfifo\*q- again, the width is set to the constant width of the string given.
.It
’ is invoked, an attempt is made to
determine an appropriate width. If the first argument to
‘.It
’ is a callable macro, the default
width for that macro will be used as if the macro name had been supplied as
the width. However, if another item in the list is given with a different
callable macro name, a new and nested list is assumed.
PREDEFINED STRINGS¶
The following strings are predefined as may be used by preceding with the troff string interpreting sequence ‘\*(xx
’
where xx is the name of the defined string or as
‘\*x
’ where
x is the name of the string. The interpreting
sequence may be used any where in the text.
String | Nroff | Troff |
<= |
<= | ≤ |
>= |
>= | ≥ |
Rq |
'' | ” |
Lq |
`` | “ |
ua |
^ | ↑ |
aa |
' | ´ |
ga |
` | ` |
q |
" | " |
Pi |
pi | pi |
Ne |
!= | ≠ |
Le |
<= | ≤ |
Ge |
>= | ≥ |
Lt |
< | > |
Gt |
> | < |
Pm |
+- | ± |
If |
infinity | infinity |
Na |
NaN | NaN |
Ba |
| | | |
q
’ should be written as
‘\*q
’ since it is only one char.
DIAGNOSTICS¶
The debugging facilities for-mdoc
are
limited, but can help detect subtle errors such as the collision of an
argument name with an internal register or macro name. (A what?) A register is
an arithmetic storage class for troff with a one
or two character name. All registers internal to
-mdoc
for
troff and ditroff
are two characters and of the form <upper_case><lower_case> such
as ‘Ar
’,
<lower_case><upper_case> as
‘aR
’ or <upper or lower
letter><digit> as ‘C1
’. And
adding to the muddle, troff has its own internal
registers all of which are either two lowercase characters or a dot plus a
letter or metacharacter character. In one of the introduction examples, it was
shown how to prevent the interpretation of a macro name with the escape
sequence ‘\&
’. This is sufficient
for the internal register names also.
If a nonescaped register name is given in the argument list of a request,
unpredictable behavior will occur. In general, any time huge portions of text
do not appear where expected in the output, or small strings such as list tags
disappear, chances are there is a misunderstanding about an argument type in
the argument list. Your mother never intended for you to remember this evil
stuff - so here is a way to find out whether or not your arguments are valid:
The ‘.Db
’ (debug) macro displays the
interpretation of the argument list for most macros. Macros such as the
‘.Pp
’ (paragraph) macro do not contain
debugging information. All of the callable macros do, and it is strongly
advised whenever in doubt, turn on the
‘.Db
’ macro.
Usage: .Db [on | off]
aC
’ which should be
‘\&aC
’ in order to work):
.Db on .Op Fl aC Ar file ) .Db off
DEBUGGING ON DEBUG(argv) MACRO: `.Op' Line #: 2 Argc: 1 Argv: `Fl' Length: 2 Space: `' Class: Executable Argc: 2 Argv: `aC' Length: 2 Space: `' Class: Executable Argc: 3 Argv: `Ar' Length: 2 Space: `' Class: Executable Argc: 4 Argv: `file' Length: 4 Space: ` ' Class: String Argc: 5 Argv: `)' Length: 1 Space: ` ' Class: Closing Punctuation or suffix MACRO REQUEST: .Op Fl aC Ar file ) DEBUGGING OFF
.Op
’, and the line number it appears
on. If one or more files are involved (especially if text from another file is
included), the line number may be bogus. If there is only one file, it should
be accurate. The second line gives the argument count, the argument
(‘Fl
’) and its length. If the length of
an argument is two characters, the argument is tested to see if it is
executable (unfortunately, any register which contains a nonzero value appears
executable). The third line gives the space allotted for a class, and the
class type. The problem here is the argument aC should not be executable. The
four types of classes are string, executable, closing punctuation and opening
punctuation. The last line shows the entire argument list as it was read. In
this next example, the offending ‘aC
’ is
escaped:
.Db on .Em An escaped \&aC .Db off
DEBUGGING ON DEBUG(fargv) MACRO: `.Em' Line #: 2 Argc: 1 Argv: `An' Length: 2 Space: ` ' Class: String Argc: 2 Argv: `escaped' Length: 7 Space: ` ' Class: String Argc: 3 Argv: `aC' Length: 2 Space: ` ' Class: String MACRO REQUEST: .Em An escaped &aC DEBUGGING OFF
\&aC
’ shows up with the
same length of 2 as the ‘\&
’
sequence produces a zero width, but a register named
‘\&aC
’ was not found and the type
classified as string.
Other diagnostics consist of usage statements and are self explanatory.
GROFF, TROFF AND NROFF¶
The-mdoc
package does not need compatibility
mode with groff.
The package inhibits page breaks, and the headers and footers which normally
occur at those breaks with nroff, to make the
manual more efficient for viewing on-line. At the moment,
groff with
-T
ascii
does eject the imaginary remainder of the page at end of file. The inhibiting
of the page breaks makes nroff'd files unsuitable
for hardcopy. There is a register named
‘cR
’ which can be set to zero in the
site dependent style file
/usr/src/share/tmac/doc-nroff to restore
the old style behavior.
FILES¶
- /usr/share/tmac/doc.tmac
- manual macro package
- /usr/share/misc/mdoc.template
- template for writing a man page
- /usr/share/examples/mdoc/*
- several example man pages
BUGS¶
Undesirable hyphenation on the dash of a flag argument is not yet resolved, and causes occasional mishaps in the DESCRIPTION section. (line break on the hyphen). Predefined strings are not declared in documentation. Section 3f has not been added to the header routines. ‘.Nm
’ font should be changed in
NAME section.
‘.Fn
’ needs to have a check to prevent
splitting up if the line length is too short. Occasionally it separates the
last parenthesis, and sometimes looks ridiculous if a line is in fill mode.
The method used to prevent header and footer page breaks (other than the initial
header and footer) when using nroff occasionally places an unsightly partially
filled line (blank) at the would be bottom of the page.
The list and display macros to not do any keeps and certainly should be able to.
SEE ALSO¶
man(1), troff(1), groff_mdoc(7), mdoc(7)COLOPHON¶
This page is part of release 4.10 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.December 30, 1993 | Debian |