contrib/mdocml/index.sgml

   1 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
   2 <HTML>
   3         <HEAD>
   4                 <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=utf-8">
   5                 <LINK REL="stylesheet" HREF="index.css" TYPE="text/css" MEDIA="all">
   6                 <TITLE>mdocml | UNIX manpage compiler</TITLE>
   7         </HEAD>
   8         <BODY>
   9                 <P CLASS="head">
  10                         <A HREF="http://www.openbsd.org/"><IMG SRC="puffy.gif" ALT="Puffy" WIDTH="100" HEIGHT="91" STYLE="float: right"></A>
  11                         <B>mdocml</B> &#8211; UNIX manpage compiler, current version @VERSION@ (@VDATE@)
  12                 </P>
  13                 <P CLASS="subhead">
  14                         Sources: <A HREF="/snapshots/mdocml.tar.gz">current</A>,
  15                         <A HREF="/cgi-bin/cvsweb/?cvsroot=mdocml">cvsweb</A>
  16                         (<A HREF="/snapshots/">archives</A>)
  17                 </P>
  18                 <H1>
  19                         <A NAME="description">Description</A>
  20                 </H1>
  21                 <P>
  22                         <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> is a suite of tools compiling <I><A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc</A></I>, the roff macro
  23                         package of choice for BSD manual pages, and <I><A HREF="man.7.html">man</A></I>, the predominant historical package for
  24                         UNIX manuals.
  25                         It is small, ISO C, <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.isc.org/software/license">ISC</A>-licensed, and quite fast.
  26                 </P>
  27                 <P>
  28                         The tool set features <A HREF="mandoc.1.html">mandoc</A>,
  29                         based on the <A HREF="mandoc.3.html">libmandoc</A> validating compiler,
  30                         to format output for UNIX terminals (with
  31                         support for wide-character locales), XHTML, HTML, PostScript, and PDF.
  32                         It also includes <A HREF="preconv.1.html">preconv</A>, for recoding multibyte manuals;
  33                         <A HREF="demandoc.1.html">demandoc</A>, for emitting only text parts of manuals;
  34                         <A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A>, for indexing manuals; and
  35                         <A HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos</A>, <A HREF="whatis.1.html">whatis</A>, and
  36                         <A HREF="man.cgi.7.html">man.cgi</A> (via <A HREF="catman.8.html">catman</A>) for semantic search of manual content.
  37                 </P>
  38                 <P>
  39                         <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> has predominantly been developed on OpenBSD
  40                         and is both an <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.openbsd.org/">OpenBSD</A>
  41                         and a <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://bsd.lv/">BSD.lv</A> project.
  42                         We strive to support all interested free operating systems, in particular
  43                         <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.dragonflybsd.org/">DragonFly</A>,
  44                         <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.netbsd.org/">NetBSD</A>,
  45                         <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</A>,
  46                         <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.minix3.org/">Minix 3</A>,
  47                         and <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.gnu.org/">GNU</A>/Linux,
  48                         as well as all systems running the <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.pkgsrc.org/">pkgsrc</A> portable package build system.
  49                         All of these projects have helped to make <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> better, by providing feedback and advice,
  50                         bug reports, and patches.
  51                 </P>
  52                 <P>
  53                         <I>Disambiguation</I>: <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> is often referred to by its installed binary, <Q>mandoc</Q>.
  54                 </P>
  55                 <H2>
  56                         <A NAME="sources">Sources</A>
  57                 </H2>
  58                 <P>
  59                         <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> should build and run on any modern system with
  60                         <A HREF="http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/berkeleydb/overview/index.html">libdb</A>
  61                         (this is installed by default on BSD UNIX systems &mdash; see the <I>Makefile</I> if you're running Linux).
  62                         To build and install into <I>/usr/local/</I>, just run <CODE>make install</CODE>.
  63                         Be careful: the <B>preconv</B>, <B>apropos</B>, and <B>whatis</B> installed binary names
  64                         may be taken by existing utilities.
  65                 </P>
  66                 <H2>
  67                         Downstream
  68                 </H2>
  69                 <P>
  70                         Several systems come bundled with <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> utilities.
  71                         If your system does not appear below, the maintainers have not contacted me and it should not be considered
  72                         <Q>official</Q>, so please <A HREF="#contact">contact us</A> if you plan on maintaining a downstream version!
  73                 </P>
  74                 <TABLE WIDTH="100%" SUMMARY="Downstream Sources">
  75                         <COL WIDTH="175">
  76                         <COL>
  77                         <TBODY>
  78                                 <TR>
  79                                         <TD>DragonFly BSD</TD>
  80                                         <TD>
  81                                         <A HREF="http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/tree/HEAD:/contrib/mdocml" CLASS="external">contrib/mdocml</A> (post-1.12.2 sources)
  82                                         <A HREF="http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/tree/HEAD:/lib/libmandoc" CLASS="external">lib/libmandoc</A>
  83                                         <A HREF="http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/tree/HEAD:/usr.bin/mandoc" CLASS="external">usr.bin/mandoc</A> (build system)
  84                                         </TD>
  85                                 </TR>
  86                                 <TR>
  87                                         <TD>FreeBSD 10.0, -CURRENT</TD>
  88                                         <TD>
  89                                         <A HREF="http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/contrib/mdocml/" CLASS="external">contrib/mdocml</A> (1.12.1 sources)
  90                                         <A HREF="http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/usr.bin/mandoc/" CLASS="external">usr.bin/mandoc</A> (build system)
  91                                         </TD>
  92                                 </TR>
  93                                 <TR>
  94                                         <TD>FreeBSD 9.x, 8.x</TD>
  95                                         <TD>
  96                                         <A HREF="http://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports/head/textproc/mdocml/" CLASS="external">ports/textproc/mdocml</A> (1.12.2 port)
  97                                         </TD>
  98                                 </TR>
  99                                 <TR>
 100                                         <TD>NetBSD</TD>
 101                                         <TD>
 102                                         <A HREF="http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/external/bsd/mdocml/" CLASS="external">src/external/bsd/mdocml</A> (1.12.1 sources plus patches and build system)
 103                                         </TD>
 104                                 </TR>
 105                                 <TR>
 106                                         <TD>OpenBSD</TD>
 107                                         <TD>
 108                                         <A HREF="http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/mandoc/" CLASS="external">src/usr.bin/mandoc</A> (post-1.12.2 sources under active development and build system)
 109                                         </TD>
 110                                 </TR>
 111                                 <TR>
 112                                         <TD>pkgsrc</TD>
 113                                         <TD>
 114                                         <A HREF="http://pkgsrc.se/textproc/mdocml" CLASS="external">textproc/mdocml</A> (1.12.2 port)
 115                                         </TD>
 116                                 </TR>
 117                                 <TR>
 118                                         <TD>Minix3</TD>
 119                                         <TD>
 120                                         <A HREF="http://git.minix3.org/?p=minix.git;a=tree;f=external/bsd/mdocml" CLASS="external">external/bsd/mdocml</A> (1.10.9 sources and build system)
 121                                         </TD>
 122                                 </TR>
 123                                 <TR>
 124                                         <TD>Alpine Linux</TD>
 125                                         <TD>
 126                                         <A HREF="http://git.alpinelinux.org/cgit/aports/tree/main/mdocml" CLASS="external">aports/main/mdocml</A> (1.12.2 port)
 127                                         </TD>
 128                                 </TR>
 129                         </TBODY>
 130                 </TABLE>
 131                 <H1>
 132                         <A NAME="documentation">Documentation</A>
 133                 </H1>
 134                 <P>
 135                         These manuals are generated automatically and refer to the current release.
 136                         They are the authoritative documentation for the <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> system.
 137                 </P>
 138
 139                 <TABLE WIDTH="100%" SUMMARY="Documentation">
 140                         <COL WIDTH="175">
 141                         <COL>
 142                         <TBODY>
 143                                 <TR>
 144                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos(1)</A></TD>
 145                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 146                                                 search the manual page database
 147                                         </TD>
 148                                 </TR>
 149                                 <TR>
 150                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="demandoc.1.html">demandoc(1)</A></TD>
 151                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 152                                                 emit only text of UNIX manuals
 153                                         </TD>
 154                                 </TR>
 155                                 <TR>
 156                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="mandoc.1.html">mandoc(1)</A></TD>
 157                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 158                                                 format and display UNIX manuals
 159                                         </TD>
 160                                 </TR>
 161                                 <TR>
 162                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="preconv.1.html">preconv(1)</A></TD>
 163                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 164                                                 recode multibyte UNIX manuals
 165                                         </TD>
 166                                 </TR>
 167                                 <TR>
 168                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="whatis.1.html">whatis(1)</A></TD>
 169                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 170                                                 search the manual page database
 171                                         </TD>
 172                                 </TR>
 173                                 <TR>
 174                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="mandoc.3.html">mandoc(3)</A></TD>
 175                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 176                                                 mandoc macro compiler library
 177                                         </TD>
 178                                 </TR>
 179                                 <TR>
 180                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="tbl.3.html">tbl(3)</A></TD>
 181                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 182                                                 roff table parser library for mandoc
 183                                         </TD>
 184                                 </TR>
 185                                 <TR>
 186                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="eqn.7.html">eqn(7)</A></TD>
 187                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 188                                                 eqn-mandoc language reference
 189                                         </TD>
 190                                 </TR>
 191                                 <TR>
 192                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="man.7.html">man(7)</A></TD>
 193                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 194                                                 man language reference
 195                                         </TD>
 196                                 </TR>
 197                                 <TR>
 198                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="man.cgi.7.html">man.cgi(7)</A></TD>
 199                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 200                                                 cgi for manpage query and display
 201                                         </TD>
 202                                 </TR>
 203                                 <TR>
 204                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="mandoc_char.7.html">mandoc_char(7)</A></TD>
 205                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 206                                                 mandoc special characters
 207                                         </TD>
 208                                 </TR>
 209                                 <TR>
 210                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc(7)</A></TD>
 211                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 212                                                 mdoc language reference
 213                                         </TD>
 214                                 </TR>
 215                                 <TR>
 216                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="roff.7.html">roff(7)</A></TD>
 217                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 218                                                 roff-mandoc language reference
 219                                         </TD>
 220                                 </TR>
 221                                 <TR>
 222                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="tbl.7.html">tbl(7)</A></TD>
 223                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 224                                                 tbl-mandoc language reference
 225                                         </TD>
 226                                 </TR>
 227                                 <TR>
 228                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="catman.8.html">catman(8)</A></TD>
 229                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 230                                                 update a man.cgi manpage cache
 231                                         </TD>
 232                                 </TR>
 233                                 <TR>
 234                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb(8)</A></TD>
 235                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 236                                                 index UNIX manuals
 237                                         </TD>
 238                                 </TR>
 239                         </TBODY>
 240                 </TABLE>
 241                 <H2>
 242                         <A NAME="links">Supplementary Information</A>
 243                 </H2>
 244                 <UL>
 245                         <LI>
 246                                 <A HREF="http://manpages.bsd.lv/">Practical UNIX Manuals</A>: mdoc tutorial by Kristaps Dzonsons
 247                         </LI>
 248                         <LI>
 249                                 <A HREF="http://www.openbsd.org/faq/ports/specialtopics.html#Mandoc" CLASS="external">OpenBSD porting guide</A>
 250                                 chapter regarding manual pages
 251                         </LI>
 252                         <LI>
 253                                 <A HREF="press.html">Publications and media coverage</A>
 254                                 concerning mdocml and mandoc
 255                         </LI>
 256                         <LI>
 257                                 <A HREF="http://manpages.bsd.lv/history.html">History of UNIX Manpages</A>: a comprehensive overview by Kristaps Dzonsons
 258                         </LI>
 259                 </UL>
 260                 <H1>
 261                         <A NAME="contact">Contact</A>
 262                 </H1>
 263                 <P>
 264                         Use the mailing lists for bug-reports, patches, questions, etc.  Please check the
 265                         <A HREF="http://mdocml.bsd.lv/cgi-bin/cvsweb/TODO?cvsroot=mdocml">TODO</A> for known issues
 266                         before posting.  All lists are subscription-only: send a blank e-mail to the listed address to subscribe.  Beyond that,
 267                         contact Kristaps at <A HREF="http://mailhide.recaptcha.net/d?k=01M6h_w7twDp58ZgH57eWC_w==&amp;c=Q2DBUt401ePlSeupJFrq_Q==" TITLE="Reveal
 268                         this e-mail address">kris...</A>@bsd.lv.  Archives are available at <A HREF="http://gmane.org/" CLASS="external">Gmane</A>.
 269                 </P>
 270                 <TABLE WIDTH="100%" SUMMARY="Mailing Lists">
 271                         <COL WIDTH="175">
 272                         <COL>
 273                         <TBODY>
 274                                 <TR>
 275                                         <TD>
 276                                                 disc<A CLASS="external" TITLE="Reveal this e-mail address"
 277                                                 HREF="http://www.google.com/recaptcha/mailhide/d?k=01KQ80PFH5n3BBNpF5Gs4sRg==&amp;c=EV1QytpQqTHSItc2IXvZyocgYLPnG5K0JKw_gwMC9yc=">...</A>@mdocml.bsd.lv
 278                                         </TD>
 279                                         <TD>
 280                                                 bug-reports, general questions, and announcements
 281                                         </TD>
 282                                 </TR>
 283                                 <TR>
 284                                         <TD>
 285                                                 tec<A CLASS="external" TITLE="Reveal this e-mail address"
 286                                                 HREF="http://www.google.com/recaptcha/mailhide/d?k=01qDX_iV0RlUOarEvb6mR28g==&amp;c=gRXsTjza0NNCFPaYu-Taj2tF0pmYZSc90EZkFkhkxgo=">...</A>@mdocml.bsd.lv
 287                                         </TD>
 288                                         <TD>
 289                                                 patches and system discussions
 290                                         </TD>
 291                                 </TR>
 292                                 <TR>
 293                                         <TD>
 294                                                 sou<A CLASS="external" TITLE="Reveal this e-mail address"
 295                                                 HREF="http://www.google.com/recaptcha/mailhide/d?k=01prQrAZhhl2EbIwVcRfABsQ==&amp;c=KtTW4Yic9xk-8g40KzJoca4fR3MYXv28g8NC6OQV-T8=">...</A>@mdocml.bsd.lv
 296                                         </TD>
 297                                         <TD>
 298                                                 source commit messages
 299                                         </TD>
 300                                 </TR>
 301                         </TBODY>
 302                 </TABLE>
 303                 <H1>
 304                         <A NAME="news">News</A>
 305                 </H1>
 306                 <P CLASS="news">
 307                         05-10-2013: version 1.12.2
 308                 </P>
 309                 <P>
 310                         The <A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc(7)</A> to <A HREF="man.7.html">man(7)</A> converter,
 311                         to be called as <CODE>mandoc -Tman</CODE>, is now fully functional.
 312                 </P>
 313                 <P>
 314                         The <A HREF="mandoc.1.html">mandoc(1)</A> utility now supports the <CODE>-Ios</CODE> (default operating system)
 315                         input option, and the <CODE>-Tutf8</CODE> output mode now actually works.
 316                 </P>
 317                 <P>
 318                         The <A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb(8)</A> utility no longer truncates existing databases when starting to build new ones,
 319                         but only replaces them when the build actually succeeds.
 320                 </P>
 321                 <P>
 322                         The <A HREF="man.7.html">man(7)</A> parser now supports the <EM>PD</EM> macro (paragraph distance),
 323                         and (for GNU man-ext compatibility only) <EM>EX</EM> (example block) and <EM>EE</EM> (example end).
 324                         Plus several bugfixes regarding indentation, line breaks, and vertical spacing,
 325                         and regarding <EM>RS</EM> following <EM>TP</EM>.
 326                 </P>
 327                 <P>
 328                         The <A HREF="roff.7.html">roff(7)</A> parser now supports the <EM>\f(BI</EM> (bold+italic) font escape,
 329                         the <EM>\z</EM> (zero cursor advance) escape and the <EM>cc</EM> (change control character)
 330                         and <EM>it</EM> (input line trap) requests.
 331                         Plus bugfixes regarding the <EM>\t</EM> (tab) escape, nested escape sequences, and conditional requests.
 332                 </P>
 333                 <P>
 334                         In <A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc(7)</A>, several bugs were fixed related to UTF-8 output of quoting enclosures,
 335                         delimiter handling, list indentation and horizontal and vertical spacing,
 336                         formatting of the <EM>Lk</EM>, <EM>%U</EM>, and <EM>%C</EM> macros,
 337                         plus some bugfixes related to the handling of syntax errors like badly nested font blocks,
 338                         stray <EM>Ta</EM> macros outside column lists, unterminated <EM>It Xo</EM> blocks,
 339                         and non-text children of <EM>Nm</EM> blocks.
 340                 </P>
 341                 <P>
 342                         In <A HREF="tbl.7.html">tbl(7)</A>, the width of horizontal spans and the vertical spacing around tables was corrected,
 343                         and in <A HREF="man.7.html">man(7)</A> files, a crash was fixed that was triggered by some particular unclosed <EM>T{</EM> macros.
 344                 </P>
 345                 <P>
 346                         For mandoc developers, we now provide a <A HREF="tbl.3.html">tbl(3)</A> library manual and <CODE>gmdiff</CODE>,
 347                         a very small, very simplistic groff-versus-mandoc output comparison tool.
 348                 </P>
 349                 <P CLASS="news">
 350                         23-03-2012: version 1.12.1
 351                 </P>
 352                 <P>
 353                         Significant work on <A HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos</A> and <A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A>.  These tools are
 354                         now much more robust.
 355                         A <A HREF="whatis.1.html">whatis</A> implementation is now handled as an <A HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos</A> mode.
 356                         These tools are also able to minimally handle pre-formatted pages, that is, those already formatted by another utility
 357                         such as GNU troff.
 358                 </P>
 359                 <P>
 360                         The <A HREF="man.cgi.7.html">man.cgi</A> script is also now available for wider testing.  It interfaces with <A
 361                         HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A> manuals cached by <A HREF="catman.8.html">catman</A>.  HTML output is generated
 362                         on-the-fly by <A HREF="mandoc.3.html">libmandoc</A> or internal methods to convert pre-formatted pages.
 363                 </P>
 364                 <P>
 365                         The mailing list archive for the discuss and tech lists are being hosted by <A CLASS="external"
 366                         HREF="http://www.gmane.org">Gmane</A> at <A HREF="http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.user"
 367                         CLASS="external">gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.user</A> and <A HREF="http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.devel"
 368                         CLASS="external">gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.devel</A>, respectively.
 369                 </P>
 370                 <P>
 371                         Lastly, I'm no longer providing binaries, as nobody has asked for them.
 372                 </P>
 373                 <H2>
 374                         <A>History</A>
 375                 </H2>
 376                 <UL>
 377                         <LI>
 378                                 <A HREF="NEWS">Release notes</A> going back to release 1.9.15, February 18, 2010.
 379                                 Briefly explaining the most important changes in each release in relatively easy terms.
 380                                 Very many changes are not mentioned here.
 381                         </LI>
 382                         <LI>
 383                                 <A HREF="history.html">Development history</A> going back to the beginning of the project, November 22, 2008.
 384                                 One-line entries for important commits, releases, merges, hackathons and talks.
 385                                 Makes it easy to find out who did what, and when, and when it became available where.
 386                                 However, this is still incomplete, mentioning only a small fraction of all commits,
 387                                 and to keep the size down, the individual entries are extremely terse and technical.
 388                                 Feel free to look up more details and longer explanations about individual entries
 389                                 in the ChangeLog or in CVS.
 390                         </LI>
 391                         <LI>
 392                                 <A HREF="ChangeLog">CVS ChangeLog</A> going back to the beginning of the project.
 393                                 Very technical information of varying quality, strictly chronological.
 394                                 All commits are mentioned, but some messages neglect to mention some changes.
 395                                 Partly terse, partly detailed and verbose.  In any case, the ChangeLog is very long -
 396                                 more than 25,000 lines, more than 700 kB.
 397                         </LI>
 398                         <LI>
 399                                 <A HREF="/cgi-bin/cvsweb/?cvsroot=mdocml">CVS</A> web interface, going back to the beginning of the project.
 400                                 Source code, diffs and commit messages for each source file.  The real thing.
 401                         </LI>
 402                 </UL>
 403                 <P CLASS="foot">
 404                         <SMALL>
 405                                 Copyright &#169; 2008&#8211;2011
 406                                 <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://kristaps.bsd.lv">Kristaps Dzonsons</A>,
 407                                 &#169; 2013 Ingo Schwarze,
 408                                 $Date: 2013/12/26 14:30:10 $
 409                         </SMALL>
 410                 </P>
 411         </BODY>
 412 </HTML>