contrib/mdocml/index.sgml

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   6                 <TITLE>mdocml | UNIX manpage compiler</TITLE>
   7         </HEAD>
   8         <BODY>
   9                 <P CLASS="head">
  10                         <B>mdocml</B> &#8211; UNIX manpage compiler, current version @VERSION@ (@VDATE@)
  11                 </P>
  12                 <P CLASS="subhead">
  13                         Sources: <A HREF="/snapshots/mdocml.tar.gz">current</A>,
  14                         <A HREF="/cgi-bin/cvsweb/?cvsroot=mdocml">cvsweb</A>
  15                         (<A HREF="/snapshots/">archives</A>)
  16                 </P>
  17                 <H1>
  18                         <A NAME="description">Description</A>
  19                 </H1>
  20                 <P>
  21                         <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> is a suite of tools compiling <I><A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc</A></I>, the roff macro
  22                         package of choice for BSD manual pages, and <I><A HREF="man.7.html">man</A></I>, the predominant historical package for
  23                         UNIX manuals.  The mission of <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> is to deprecate <A
  24                         HREF="http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/" CLASS="external">groff</A>, the GNU troff implementation, for displaying <I>mdoc</I>
  25                         pages whilst providing token support for <I>man</I>.
  26                 </P>
  27                 <P>
  28                         Why?  groff amounts to over 5 MB of source code, most of which is C++ and GPL version 3.  It runs slowly, produces
  29                         uncertain output, and varies in operation from system to system.  mdocml strives to fix this (respectively small, C, <A
  30                         CLASS="external" HREF="http://www.isc.org/software/license">ISC</A>-licensed, fast and regular).
  31                 </P>
  32                 <P>
  33                         <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> consists of the <A HREF="mandoc.3.html">libmandoc</A> validating compiler and <A
  34                         HREF="mandoc.1.html">mandoc</A>, which interfaces with the compiler library to format output for UNIX terminals (with
  35                         support for wide-character locales), XHTML, HTML, PostScript, and PDF.
  36                         It also includes <A HREF="preconv.1.html">preconv</A>, for recoding multibyte manuals;
  37                         <A HREF="demandoc.1.html">demandoc</A>, for emitting only text parts of manuals;
  38                         <A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A>, for indexing manuals; and
  39                         <A HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos</A>, <A HREF="whatis.1.html">whatis</A>, and
  40                         <A HREF="man.cgi.7.html">man.cgi</A> (via <A HREF="catman.8.html">catman</A>) for semantic search of manual content.
  41                         It is a <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://bsd.lv/">BSD.lv</A> project.
  42                 </P>
  43                 <P>
  44                         <I>Disambiguation</I>: <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> is often referred to by its installed binary, <Q>mandoc</Q>.
  45                 </P>
  46                 <H2>
  47                         <A NAME="sources">Sources</A>
  48                 </H2>
  49                 <P>
  50                         <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> is in plain-old ANSI C and should build and run on any modern system; however, you'll
  51                         need <A HREF="http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/berkeleydb/overview/index.html">libdb</A> to build <A
  52                         HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos</A>, <A HREF="whatis.1.html">whatis</A>, <A HREF="man.cgi.7.html">man.cgi</A>, <A
  53                         HREF="catman.8.html">catman</A>, and <A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A> (this is installed by default on BSD UNIX
  54                         systems &mdash; see the <I>Makefile</I> if you're running Linux).  To build and install into <I>/usr/local/</I>, just
  55                         run <CODE>make install</CODE>.  Be careful: the <B>preconv</B>, <B>apropos</B>, and <B>whatis</B> binary names are
  56                         usually taken by existing utilities.
  57                 </P>
  58                 <H2>
  59                         Downstream
  60                 </H2>
  61                 <P>
  62                         Several systems come bundled with <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> utilities.
  63                         If your system does not appear below, the maintainers have not contacted me and it should not be considered
  64                         <Q>official</Q>.
  65                         Please <A HREF="#contact">contact us</A> if you plan on maintaining a downstream version!
  66                 </P>
  67                 <TABLE WIDTH="100%" SUMMARY="Downstream Sources">
  68                         <COL WIDTH="175">
  69                         <COL>
  70                         <TBODY>
  71                                 <TR>
  72                                         <TD>DragonFly BSD</TD>
  73                                         <TD>
  74                                         <A HREF="http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/tree/HEAD:/contrib/mdocml" CLASS="external">contrib/mdocml</A> (1.12.1 sources)
  75                                         <A HREF="http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/tree/HEAD:/lib/libmandoc" CLASS="external">lib/libmandoc</A>
  76                                         <A HREF="http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/tree/HEAD:/usr.bin/mandoc" CLASS="external">usr.bin/mandoc</A> (build system)
  77                                         </TD>
  78                                 </TR>
  79                                 <TR>
  80                                         <TD>FreeBSD 10.0, -CURRENT</TD>
  81                                         <TD>
  82                                         <A HREF="http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/contrib/mdocml/" CLASS="external">contrib/mdocml</A> (1.12.1 sources)
  83                                         <A HREF="http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/usr.bin/mandoc/" CLASS="external">usr.bin/mandoc</A> (build system)
  84                                         </TD>
  85                                 </TR>
  86                                 <TR>
  87                                         <TD>FreeBSD 9.x, 8.x</TD>
  88                                         <TD>
  89                                         <A HREF="http://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports/textproc/mdocml/" CLASS="external">ports/textproc/mdocml</A> (1.12.1 port)
  90                                         </TD>
  91                                 </TR>
  92                                 <TR>
  93                                         <TD>NetBSD</TD>
  94                                         <TD>
  95                                         <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)
  96                                         </TD>
  97                                 </TR>
  98                                 <TR>
  99                                         <TD>OpenBSD</TD>
 100                                         <TD>
 101                                         <A HREF="http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/mandoc/" CLASS="external">src/usr.bin/mandoc</A> (1.12.2 sources and build system)
 102                                         </TD>
 103                                 </TR>
 104                                 <TR>
 105                                         <TD>pkgsrc</TD>
 106                                         <TD>
 107                                         <A HREF="http://pkgsrc.se/textproc/mdocml" CLASS="external">textproc/mdocml</A> (1.12.0 port)
 108                                         </TD>
 109                                 </TR>
 110                                 <TR>
 111                                         <TD>Minix3</TD>
 112                                         <TD>
 113                                         <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)
 114                                         </TD>
 115                                 </TR>
 116                                 <TR>
 117                                         <TD>Alpine Linux</TD>
 118                                         <TD>
 119                                         <A HREF="http://git.alpinelinux.org/cgit/aports/tree/main/mdocml" CLASS="external">aports/main/mdocml</A> (1.12.1 port)
 120                                         </TD>
 121                                 </TR>
 122                         </TBODY>
 123                 </TABLE>
 124                 <H1>
 125                         <A NAME="documentation">Documentation</A>
 126                 </H1>
 127                 <P>
 128                         These manuals are generated automatically and refer to the current release.
 129                         They are the authoritative documentation for the <SPAN CLASS="nm">mdocml</SPAN> system.
 130                 </P>
 131
 132                 <TABLE WIDTH="100%" SUMMARY="Documentation">
 133                         <COL WIDTH="175">
 134                         <COL>
 135                         <TBODY>
 136                                 <TR>
 137                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos(1)</A></TD>
 138                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 139                                                 search the manual page database
 140                                         </TD>
 141                                 </TR>
 142                                 <TR>
 143                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="demandoc.1.html">demandoc(1)</A></TD>
 144                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 145                                                 emit only text of UNIX manuals
 146                                         </TD>
 147                                 </TR>
 148                                 <TR>
 149                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="mandoc.1.html">mandoc(1)</A></TD>
 150                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 151                                                 format and display UNIX manuals
 152                                         </TD>
 153                                 </TR>
 154                                 <TR>
 155                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="preconv.1.html">preconv(1)</A></TD>
 156                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 157                                                 recode multibyte UNIX manuals
 158                                         </TD>
 159                                 </TR>
 160                                 <TR>
 161                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="whatis.1.html">whatis(1)</A></TD>
 162                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 163                                                 search the manual page database
 164                                         </TD>
 165                                 </TR>
 166                                 <TR>
 167                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="mandoc.3.html">mandoc(3)</A></TD>
 168                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 169                                                 mandoc macro compiler library
 170                                         </TD>
 171                                 </TR>
 172                                 <TR>
 173                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="tbl.3.html">tbl(3)</A></TD>
 174                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 175                                                 roff table parser library for mandoc
 176                                         </TD>
 177                                 </TR>
 178                                 <TR>
 179                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="eqn.7.html">eqn(7)</A></TD>
 180                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 181                                                 eqn-mandoc language reference
 182                                         </TD>
 183                                 </TR>
 184                                 <TR>
 185                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="man.7.html">man(7)</A></TD>
 186                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 187                                                 man language reference
 188                                         </TD>
 189                                 </TR>
 190                                 <TR>
 191                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="man.cgi.7.html">man.cgi(7)</A></TD>
 192                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 193                                                 cgi for manpage query and display
 194                                         </TD>
 195                                 </TR>
 196                                 <TR>
 197                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="mandoc_char.7.html">mandoc_char(7)</A></TD>
 198                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 199                                                 mandoc special characters
 200                                         </TD>
 201                                 </TR>
 202                                 <TR>
 203                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc(7)</A></TD>
 204                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 205                                                 mdoc language reference
 206                                         </TD>
 207                                 </TR>
 208                                 <TR>
 209                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="roff.7.html">roff(7)</A></TD>
 210                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 211                                                 roff-mandoc language reference
 212                                         </TD>
 213                                 </TR>
 214                                 <TR>
 215                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="tbl.7.html">tbl(7)</A></TD>
 216                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 217                                                 tbl-mandoc language reference
 218                                         </TD>
 219                                 </TR>
 220                                 <TR>
 221                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="catman.8.html">catman(8)</A></TD>
 222                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 223                                                 update a man.cgi manpage cache
 224                                         </TD>
 225                                 </TR>
 226                                 <TR>
 227                                         <TD VALIGN="top"><A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb(8)</A></TD>
 228                                         <TD VALIGN="top">
 229                                                 index UNIX manuals
 230                                         </TD>
 231                                 </TR>
 232                         </TBODY>
 233                 </TABLE>
 234                 <H1>
 235                         <A NAME="contact">Contact</A>
 236                 </H1>
 237                 <P>
 238                         Use the mailing lists for bug-reports, patches, questions, etc.  Please check the
 239                         <A HREF="http://mdocml.bsd.lv/cgi-bin/cvsweb/TODO?cvsroot=mdocml">TODO</A> for known issues
 240                         before posting.  All lists are subscription-only: send a blank e-mail to the listed address to subscribe.  Beyond that,
 241                         contact Kristaps at <A HREF="http://mailhide.recaptcha.net/d?k=01M6h_w7twDp58ZgH57eWC_w==&amp;c=Q2DBUt401ePlSeupJFrq_Q==" TITLE="Reveal
 242                         this e-mail address">kris...</A>@bsd.lv.  Archives are available at <A HREF="http://gmane.org/" CLASS="external">Gmane</A>.
 243                 </P>
 244                 <TABLE WIDTH="100%" SUMMARY="Mailing Lists">
 245                         <COL WIDTH="175">
 246                         <COL>
 247                         <TBODY>
 248                                 <TR>
 249                                         <TD>
 250                                                 disc<A CLASS="external" TITLE="Reveal this e-mail address"
 251                                                 HREF="http://www.google.com/recaptcha/mailhide/d?k=01KQ80PFH5n3BBNpF5Gs4sRg==&amp;c=EV1QytpQqTHSItc2IXvZyocgYLPnG5K0JKw_gwMC9yc=">...</A>@mdocml.bsd.lv
 252                                         </TD>
 253                                         <TD>
 254                                                 bug-reports, general questions, and announcements
 255                                         </TD>
 256                                 </TR>
 257                                 <TR>
 258                                         <TD>
 259                                                 tec<A CLASS="external" TITLE="Reveal this e-mail address"
 260                                                 HREF="http://www.google.com/recaptcha/mailhide/d?k=01qDX_iV0RlUOarEvb6mR28g==&amp;c=gRXsTjza0NNCFPaYu-Taj2tF0pmYZSc90EZkFkhkxgo=">...</A>@mdocml.bsd.lv
 261                                         </TD>
 262                                         <TD>
 263                                                 patches and system discussions
 264                                         </TD>
 265                                 </TR>
 266                                 <TR>
 267                                         <TD>
 268                                                 sou<A CLASS="external" TITLE="Reveal this e-mail address"
 269                                                 HREF="http://www.google.com/recaptcha/mailhide/d?k=01prQrAZhhl2EbIwVcRfABsQ==&amp;c=KtTW4Yic9xk-8g40KzJoca4fR3MYXv28g8NC6OQV-T8=">...</A>@mdocml.bsd.lv
 270                                         </TD>
 271                                         <TD>
 272                                                 source commit messages
 273                                         </TD>
 274                                 </TR>
 275                         </TBODY>
 276                 </TABLE>
 277                 <H1>
 278                         <A NAME="news">News</A>
 279                 </H1>
 280                 <P CLASS="news">
 281                         02-10-2013: version 1.12.2
 282                 </P>
 283                 <P>
 284                         The <A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc(7)</A> to <A HREF="man.7.html">man(7)</A> converter,
 285                         to be called as <CODE>mandoc -Tman</CODE>, is now fully functional.
 286                 </P>
 287                 <P>
 288                         The <A HREF="mandoc.1.html">mandoc(1)</A> utility now supports the <CODE>-Ios</CODE> (default operating system)
 289                         input option, and the <CODE>-Tutf8</CODE> output mode now actually works.
 290                 </P>
 291                 <P>
 292                         The <A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb(8)</A> utility no longer truncates existing databases when starting to build new ones,
 293                         but only replaces them when the build actually succeeds.
 294                 </P>
 295                 <P>
 296                         The <A HREF="man.7.html">man(7)</A> parser now supports the <EM>PD</EM> macro (paragraph distance),
 297                         and (for GNU man-ext compatibility only) <EM>EX</EM> (example block) and <EM>EE</EM> (example end).
 298                         Plus several bugfixes regarding indentation, line breaks, and vertical spacing,
 299                         and regarding <EM>RS</EM> following <EM>TP</EM>.
 300                 </P>
 301                 <P>
 302                         The <A HREF="roff.7.html">roff(7)</A> parser now supports the <EM>\f(BI</EM> (bold+italic) font escape,
 303                         the <EM>\z</EM> (zero cursor advance) escape and the <EM>cc</EM> (change control character)
 304                         and <EM>it</EM> (input line trap) requests.
 305                         Plus bugfixes regarding the <EM>\t</EM> (tab) escape, nested escape sequences, and conditional requests.
 306                 </P>
 307                 <P>
 308                         In <A HREF="mdoc.7.html">mdoc(7)</A>, several bugs were fixed related to UTF-8 output of quoting enclosures,
 309                         delimiter handling, list indentation and horizontal and vertical spacing,
 310                         formatting of the <EM>Lk</EM>, <EM>%U</EM>, and <EM>%C</EM> macros,
 311                         plus some bugfixes related to the handling of syntax errors like badly nested font blocks,
 312                         stray <EM>Ta</EM> macros outside column lists, unterminated <EM>It Xo</EM> blocks,
 313                         and non-text children of <EM>Nm</EM> blocks.
 314                 </P>
 315                 <P>
 316                         In <A HREF="tbl.7.html">tbl(7)</A>, the width of horizontal spans and the vertical spacing around tables was corrected,
 317                         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.
 318                 </P>
 319                 <P>
 320                         For mandoc developers, we now provide a <A HREF="tbl.3.html">tbl(3)</A> library manual and <CODE>gmdiff</CODE>,
 321                         a very small, very simplistic groff-versus-mandoc output comparison tool.
 322                 </P>
 323                 <P>
 324                         See <A HREF="NEWS">NEWS</A> for historical notes.
 325                 </P>
 326                 <P CLASS="news">
 327                         23-03-2011: version 1.12.1
 328                 </P>
 329                 <P>
 330                         Significant work on <A HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos</A> and <A HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A>.  These tools are
 331                         now much more robust.
 332                         A <A HREF="whatis.1.html">whatis</A> implementation is now handled as an <A HREF="apropos.1.html">apropos</A> mode.
 333                         These tools are also able to minimally handle pre-formatted pages, that is, those already formatted by another utility
 334                         such as GNU troff.
 335                 </P>
 336                 <P>
 337                         The <A HREF="man.cgi.7.html">man.cgi</A> script is also now available for wider testing.  It interfaces with <A
 338                         HREF="mandocdb.8.html">mandocdb</A> manuals cached by <A HREF="catman.8.html">catman</A>.  HTML output is generated
 339                         on-the-fly by <A HREF="mandoc.3.html">libmandoc</A> or internal methods to convert pre-formatted pages.
 340                 </P>
 341                 <P>
 342                         The mailing list archive for the discuss and tech lists are being hosted by <A CLASS="external"
 343                         HREF="http://www.gmane.org">Gmane</A> at <A HREF="http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.user"
 344                         CLASS="external">gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.user</A> and <A HREF="http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.devel"
 345                         CLASS="external">gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.devel</A>, respectively.
 346                 </P>
 347                 <P>
 348                         Lastly, I'm no longer providing binaries, as nobody has asked for them.
 349                 </P>
 350                 <P>
 351                         See <A HREF="http://mdocml.bsd.lv/cgi-bin/cvsweb/index.sgml?cvsroot=mdocml">cvsweb</A> for
 352                         historical notes.
 353                 </P>
 354                 <P CLASS="foot">
 355                         <SMALL>
 356                                 Copyright &#169; 2008&#8211;2011
 357                                 <A CLASS="external" HREF="http://kristaps.bsd.lv">Kristaps Dzonsons</A>,
 358                                 &#169; 2013 Ingo Schwarze,
 359                                 $Date: 2013/10/05 14:05:09 $
 360                         </SMALL>
 361                 </P>
 362         </BODY>
 363 </HTML>