1 .\" $Id: mandoc.1,v 1.217 2017/07/20 15:26:41 schwarze Exp $
3 .\" Copyright (c) 2009, 2010, 2011 Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@bsd.lv>
4 .\" Copyright (c) 2012, 2014-2017 Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>
6 .\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
7 .\" purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
8 .\" copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
10 .\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
11 .\" WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
12 .\" MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
13 .\" ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
14 .\" WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
15 .\" ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
16 .\" OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
18 .Dd $Mdocdate: July 20 2017 $
23 .Nd format manual pages
27 .Op Fl I Cm os Ns = Ns Ar name
39 manual pages for display.
47 text from stdin and produces
51 The options are as follows:
54 If the standard output is a terminal device and
58 to paginate the output, just like
62 Copy the formatted manual pages to the standard output without using
66 It can be specified to override
68 .It Fl I Cm os Ns = Ns Ar name
69 Override the default operating system
79 Specify the input encoding.
87 If not specified, autodetection uses the first match in the following
91 If the first three bytes of the input file are the UTF-8 byte order
92 mark (BOM, 0xefbbbf), input is interpreted as
95 If the first or second line of the input file matches the
99 .D1 .\e" -*- Oo ...; Oc coding: Ar encoding ; No -*-
101 then input is interpreted according to
104 If the first non-ASCII byte in the file introduces a valid UTF-8
105 sequence, input is interpreted as
108 Otherwise, input is interpreted as
114 all input files are interpreted as
118 all input files are interpreted as
120 By default, the input language is automatically detected for each file:
121 if the the first macro is
127 parser is used; otherwise, the
130 With other arguments,
134 Comma-separated output options.
139 for available formats.
143 Specify the minimum message
145 to be reported on the standard error output and to affect the exit status.
157 level automatically derives the operating system from the contents of the
161 command line option, or from the
170 that bypass autodetection and request validation of base system
171 conventions for a particular operating system.
189 to exit after parsing a file that causes warnings or errors of at least
191 No formatted output will be produced from that file.
196 are requested, they can be joined with a comma, for example
197 .Fl W Cm error , Ns Cm stop .
199 Read input from zero or more files.
200 If unspecified, reads from stdin.
201 If multiple files are specified,
203 will halt with the first failed parse.
208 utility accepts the following
210 arguments, which correspond to output modes:
211 .Bl -tag -width "-T markdown"
213 Produce 7-bit ASCII output.
217 Produce HTML5, CSS1, and MathML output.
221 Parse only: produce no output.
224 and redirects parser messages, which usually appear
225 on standard error output, to standard output.
227 Encode output using the current locale.
242 .Sx Markdown Output .
248 Produce PostScript output.
250 .Sx PostScript Output .
252 Produce an indented parse tree.
254 Encode output in the UTF\-8 multi-byte format.
259 If multiple input files are specified, these will be processed by the
260 corresponding filter in-order.
264 is rendered in standard 7-bit ASCII documented in
267 Font styles are applied by using back-spaced encoding such that an
271 .Sq _ Ns \e[bs] Ns c ,
274 is the back-space character number 8.
275 Emboldened characters are rendered as
276 .Sq c Ns \e[bs] Ns c .
278 The special characters documented in
280 are rendered best-effort in an ASCII equivalent.
282 Output width is limited to 78 visible columns unless literal input lines
287 arguments are accepted:
289 .It Cm indent Ns = Ns Ar indent
290 The left margin for normal text is set to
292 blank characters instead of the default of five for
296 Increasing this is not recommended; it may result in degraded formatting,
297 for example overfull lines or ugly line breaks.
298 .It Cm width Ns = Ns Ar width
299 The output width is set to
305 conforms to HTML5 using optional self-closing tags.
306 Default styles use only CSS1.
307 Equations rendered from
313 file documents style-sheet classes available for customising output.
314 If a style-sheet is not specified with
317 defaults to simple output (via an embedded style-sheet)
318 readable in any graphical or text-based web
321 Special characters are rendered in decimal-encoded UTF\-8.
325 arguments are accepted:
328 Omit the <!DOCTYPE> declaration and the <html>, <head>, and <body>
329 elements and only emit the subtree below the <body> element.
332 argument will be ignored.
333 This is useful when embedding manual content within existing documents.
334 .It Cm includes Ns = Ns Ar fmt
339 is used as a template for linked header files (usually via the
344 are replaced with the include filename.
345 The default is not to present a
347 .It Cm man Ns = Ns Ar fmt
351 .Ar ../html%S/%N.%S.html ,
352 is used as a template for linked manuals (usually via the
359 are replaced with the linked manual's name and section, respectively.
360 If no section is included, section 1 is assumed.
361 The default is not to
363 .It Cm style Ns = Ns Ar style.css
366 is used for an external style-sheet.
367 This must be a valid absolute or
371 Locale-depending output encoding is triggered with
375 Translate input format into
378 This is useful for distributing manual sources to legacy systems
385 is passed as input, it is translated into
387 If the input format is
389 the input is copied to the output, expanding any
393 The parser is also run, and as usual, the
397 are displayed before copying the input to the output.
404 .Lk http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax.text\
405 "John Gruber's 2004 specification" .
406 The output also almost conforms to the
407 .Lk http://commonmark.org/ CommonMark
410 The character set used for the markdown output is ASCII.
411 Non-ASCII characters are encoded as HTML entities.
412 Since that is not possible in literal font contexts, because these
413 are rendered as code spans and code blocks in the markdown output,
414 non-ASCII characters are transliterated to ASCII approximations in
417 Markdown is a very weak markup language, so all semantic markup is
418 lost, and even part of the presentational markup may be lost.
419 Do not use this as an intermediate step in converting to HTML;
429 input languages are not supported by
433 PDF-1.1 output may be generated by
436 .Sx PostScript Output
439 arguments and defaults.
440 .Ss PostScript Output
443 Level-2 pages may be generated by
445 Output pages default to letter sized and are rendered in the Times font
447 Margins are calculated as 1/9 the page length and width.
450 Special characters are rendered as in
455 arguments are accepted:
457 .It Cm paper Ns = Ns Ar name
467 You may also manually specify dimensions as
469 width by height in millimetres.
470 If an unknown value is encountered,
477 to force a UTF\-8 locale.
480 for details and options.
481 .Ss Syntax tree output
484 to show a human readable representation of the syntax tree.
485 It is useful for debugging the source code of manual pages.
486 The exact format is subject to change, so don't write parsers for it.
488 The first paragraph shows meta data found in the
493 line, or the fallbacks used.
495 In the tree dump, each output line shows one syntax tree node.
496 Child nodes are indented with respect to their parent node.
501 For macro nodes, the macro name; for text and
504 There is a special format for
508 Node type (text, elem, block, head, body, body-end, tail, tbl, eqn).
513 An opening parenthesis if the node is an opening delimiter.
515 An asterisk if the node starts a new input line.
517 The input line number (starting at one).
521 The input column number (starting at one).
523 A closing parenthesis if the node is a closing delimiter.
525 A full stop if the node ends a sentence.
527 BROKEN if the node is a block broken by another block.
529 NOSRC if the node is not in the input file,
530 but automatically generated from macros.
532 NOPRT if the node is not supposed to generate output
533 for any output format.
539 argument is accepted:
542 Skip validation and show the unvalidated syntax tree.
543 This can help to find out whether a given behaviour is caused by
544 the parser or by the validator.
545 Meta data is not available in this case.
550 utility exits with one of the following values, controlled by the message
556 .Bl -tag -width Ds -compact
558 No base system convention violations, style suggestions, warnings,
559 or errors occurred, or those that did were ignored because they
560 were lower than the requested
563 At least one base system convention violation or style suggestion
564 occurred, but no warning or error, and
570 At least one warning occurred, but no error, and
576 At least one parsing error occurred,
577 but no unsupported feature was encountered, and
583 At least one unsupported feature was encountered, and
589 Invalid command line arguments were specified.
590 No input files have been read.
592 An operating system error occurred, for example exhaustion
593 of memory, file descriptors, or process table entries.
596 to exit at once, possibly in the middle of parsing or formatting a file.
604 To page manuals to the terminal:
606 .Dl $ mandoc -l mandoc.1 man.1 apropos.1 makewhatis.8
608 To produce HTML manuals with
612 .Dl $ mandoc \-T html -Ostyle=mandoc.css mdoc.5 \*(Gt mdoc.5.html
614 To check over a large set of manuals:
616 .Dl $ mandoc \-T lint \(gafind /usr/src -name \e*\e.[1-9]\(ga
618 To produce a series of PostScript manuals for A4 paper:
620 .Dl $ mandoc \-T ps \-O paper=a4 mdoc.5 man.5 \*(Gt manuals.ps
626 format, for use on systems lacking an
630 .Dl $ mandoc \-T man foo.mdoc \*(Gt foo.man
632 Messages displayed by
635 .Bd -ragged -offset indent
637 .Ar file : Ns Ar line : Ns Ar column : level : message : macro args
641 Line and column numbers start at 1.
642 Both are omitted for messages referring to an input file as a whole.
643 Macro names and arguments are omitted where meaningless.
646 operating system specifier is omitted for messages that are relevant
647 for all operating systems.
648 Fatal messages about invalid command line arguments
649 or operating system errors, for example when memory is exhausted,
656 Message levels have the following meanings:
657 .Bl -tag -width "warning"
659 An input file uses unsupported low-level
662 The output may be incomplete and/or misformatted,
663 so using GNU troff instead of
665 to process the file may be preferable.
667 Indicates a risk of information loss or severe misformatting,
668 in most cases caused by serious syntax errors.
670 Indicates a risk that the information shown or its formatting
671 may mismatch the author's intent in minor ways.
672 Additionally, syntax errors are classified at least as warnings,
673 even if they do not usually cause misformatting.
675 An input file uses dubious or discouraged style.
676 This is not a complaint about the syntax, and probably neither
677 formatting nor portability are in danger.
678 While great care is taken to avoid false positives on the higher
681 level tries to reduce the probability that issues go unnoticed,
682 so it may occasionally issue bogus suggestions.
683 Please use your good judgement to decide whether any particular
685 suggestion really justifies a change to the input file.
687 A convertion used in the base system of a specific operating system
689 These are not markup mistakes, and neither the quality of formatting
690 nor portability are in danger.
693 level are printed with the more intuitive
706 levels except those about non-existent or unreadable input files
707 are hidden unless their level, or a lower level, is requested using a
713 As indicated below, all
717 checks are only performed if a specific operating system name occurs
718 in the arguments of the
720 command line option, of the
724 command line option, or, if neither are present, in the return value
728 .Ss Conventions for base system manuals
730 .It Sy "Mdocdate found"
736 keyword substitution, which is not supported by the
739 Consider using the conventional
742 .It Sy "Mdocdate missing"
746 macro does not use CVS
748 keyword substitution, but using it is conventionally expected in the
751 .It Sy "unknown architecture"
753 The third argument of the
755 macro does not match any of the architectures this operating system
757 .It Sy "operating system explicitly specified"
761 macro has an argument.
762 In the base system, it is conventionally left blank.
763 .It Sy "RCS id missing"
765 The manual page lacks the comment line with the RCS identifier
770 keyword substitution as conventionally used in these operating systems.
771 .It Sy "referenced manual not found"
775 macro references a manual page that is not found in the base system.
776 The path to look for base system manuals is configurable at compile
778 .Pa /usr/share/man : /usr/X11R6/man .
780 .Ss Style suggestions
782 .It Sy "legacy man(7) date format"
786 macro uses the legacy
790 Consider using the conventional
795 .It Sy "lower case character in document title"
797 The title is still used as given in the
802 .It Sy "duplicate RCS id"
803 A single manual page contains two copies of the RCS identifier for
804 the same operating system.
805 Consider deleting the later instance and moving the first one up
806 to the top of the page.
807 .It Sy "typo in section name"
809 Fuzzy string matching revealed that the argument of an
811 macro is similar, but not identical to a standard section name.
812 .It Sy "unterminated quoted argument"
814 Macro arguments can be enclosed in double quote characters
815 such that space characters and macro names contained in the quoted
816 argument need not be escaped.
817 The closing quote of the last argument of a macro can be omitted.
818 However, omitting it is not recommended because it makes the code
820 .It Sy "useless macro"
828 Simply delete it: it serves no useful purpose.
829 .It Sy "consider using OS macro"
831 A string was found in plain text or in a
833 macro that could be represented using
839 .It Sy "errnos out of order"
845 list are not in alphabetical order.
846 .It Sy "duplicate errno"
850 list contains two consecutive
852 entries describing the same
855 .It Sy "trailing delimiter"
857 The last argument of an
858 .Ic \&Ex , \&Fo , \&Nd , \&Nm , \&Os , \&Sh , \&Ss , \&St ,
861 macro ends with a trailing delimiter.
862 This is usually bad style and often indicates typos.
863 Most likely, the delimiter can be removed.
864 .It Sy "no blank before trailing delimiter"
866 The last argument of a macro that supports trailing delimiter
867 arguments is longer than one byte and ends with a trailing delimiter.
868 Consider inserting a blank such that the delimiter becomes a separate
869 argument, thus moving it out of the scope of the macro.
870 .It Sy "fill mode already enabled, skipping"
874 request occurs even though the document is still in fill mode,
875 or already switched back to fill mode.
877 .It Sy "fill mode already disabled, skipping"
881 request occurs even though the document already switched to no-fill mode
882 and did not switch back to fill mode yet.
884 .It Sy "function name without markup"
886 A word followed by an empty pair of parentheses occurs on a text line.
892 .It Sy "whitespace at end of input line"
893 .Pq mdoc , man , roff
894 Whitespace at the end of input lines is almost never semantically
895 significant \(em but in the odd case where it might be, it is
896 extremely confusing when reviewing and maintaining documents.
897 .It Sy "bad comment style"
899 Comment lines start with a dot, a backslash, and a double-quote character.
902 utility treats the line as a comment line even without the backslash,
903 but leaving out the backslash might not be portable.
905 .Ss Warnings related to the document prologue
907 .It Sy "missing manual title, using UNTITLED"
911 macro has no arguments, or there is no
913 macro before the first non-prologue macro.
914 .It Sy "missing manual title, using \(dq\(dq"
918 macro, or it has no arguments.
919 .It Sy "missing manual section, using \(dq\(dq"
925 macro lacks the mandatory section argument.
926 .It Sy "unknown manual section"
928 The section number in a
930 line is invalid, but still used.
931 .It Sy "missing date, using today's date"
933 The document was parsed as
939 macro has no arguments or only empty arguments;
940 or the document was parsed as
946 macro has less than three arguments or its third argument is empty.
947 .It Sy "cannot parse date, using it verbatim"
953 macro does not follow the conventional format.
954 .It Sy "date in the future, using it anyway"
960 macro is more than a day ahead of the current system
962 .It Sy "missing Os macro, using \(dq\(dq"
964 The default or current system is not shown in this case.
965 .It Sy "late prologue macro"
971 macro occurs after some non-prologue macro, but still takes effect.
972 .It Sy "prologue macros out of order"
974 The prologue macros are not given in the conventional order
978 All three macros are used even when given in another order.
980 .Ss Warnings regarding document structure
982 .It Sy ".so is fragile, better use ln(1)"
984 Including files only works when the parser program runs with the correct
985 current working directory.
986 .It Sy "no document body"
988 The document body contains neither text nor macros.
989 An empty document is shown, consisting only of a header and a footer line.
990 .It Sy "content before first section header"
992 Some macros or text precede the first
997 The offending macros and text are parsed and added to the top level
998 of the syntax tree, outside any section block.
999 .It Sy "first section is not NAME"
1001 The argument of the first
1012 .It Sy "NAME section without Nm before Nd"
1014 The NAME section does not contain any
1016 child macro before the first
1019 .It Sy "NAME section without description"
1021 The NAME section lacks the mandatory
1024 .It Sy "description not at the end of NAME"
1026 The NAME section does contain an
1028 child macro, but other content follows it.
1029 .It Sy "bad NAME section content"
1031 The NAME section contains plain text or macros other than
1035 .It Sy "missing comma before name"
1037 The NAME section contains an
1039 macro that is neither the first one nor preceded by a comma.
1040 .It Sy "missing description line, using \(dq\(dq"
1044 macro lacks the required argument.
1045 The title line of the manual will end after the dash.
1046 .It Sy "description line outside NAME section"
1050 macro appears outside the NAME section.
1051 The arguments are printed anyway and the following text is used for
1053 but none of that behaviour is portable.
1054 .It Sy "sections out of conventional order"
1056 A standard section occurs after another section it usually precedes.
1057 All section titles are used as given,
1058 and the order of sections is not changed.
1059 .It Sy "duplicate section title"
1061 The same standard section title occurs more than once.
1062 .It Sy "unexpected section"
1064 A standard section header occurs in a section of the manual
1065 where it normally isn't useful.
1066 .It Sy "cross reference to self"
1070 macro refers to a name and section matching the section of the present
1071 manual page and a name mentioned in an
1073 macro in the NAME or SYNOPSIS section, or in an
1077 macro in the SYNOPSIS.
1084 .It Sy "unusual Xr order"
1086 In the SEE ALSO section, an
1088 macro with a lower section number follows one with a higher number,
1091 macros referring to the same section are out of alphabetical order.
1092 .It Sy "unusual Xr punctuation"
1094 In the SEE ALSO section, punctuation between two
1096 macros differs from a single comma, or there is trailing punctuation
1100 .It Sy "AUTHORS section without An macro"
1102 An AUTHORS sections contains no
1104 macros, or only empty ones.
1105 Probably, there are author names lacking markup.
1107 .Ss "Warnings related to macros and nesting"
1109 .It Sy "obsolete macro"
1113 manual for replacements.
1114 .It Sy "macro neither callable nor escaped"
1116 The name of a macro that is not callable appears on a macro line.
1117 It is printed verbatim.
1118 If the intention is to call it, move it to its own input line;
1119 otherwise, escape it by prepending
1121 .It Sy "skipping paragraph macro"
1124 documents, this happens
1127 at the beginning and end of sections and subsections
1129 right before non-compact lists and displays
1131 at the end of items in non-column, non-compact lists
1133 and for multiple consecutive paragraph macros.
1137 documents, it happens
1149 macros having neither head nor body arguments
1160 .It Sy "moving paragraph macro out of list"
1164 list contains a trailing paragraph macro.
1165 The paragraph macro is moved after the end of the list.
1166 .It Sy "skipping no-space macro"
1168 An input line begins with an
1170 macro, or the next argument after an
1172 macro is an isolated closing delimiter.
1173 The macro is ignored.
1174 .It Sy "blocks badly nested"
1176 If two blocks intersect, one should completely contain the other.
1177 Otherwise, rendered output is likely to look strange in any output
1178 format, and rendering in SGML-based output formats is likely to be
1179 outright wrong because such languages do not support badly nested
1181 Typical examples of badly nested blocks are
1182 .Qq Ic \&Ao \&Bo \&Ac \&Bc
1184 .Qq Ic \&Ao \&Bq \&Ac .
1192 .It Sy "nested displays are not portable"
1199 display occurs nested inside another
1204 but fails with most other implementations.
1205 .It Sy "moving content out of list"
1209 list block contains text or macros before the first
1212 The offending children are moved before the beginning of the list.
1213 .It Sy "first macro on line"
1218 macro occurs as the first macro on a line, which is not portable.
1219 .It Sy "line scope broken"
1221 While parsing the next-line scope of the previous macro,
1222 another macro is found that prematurely terminates the previous one.
1223 The previous, interrupted macro is deleted from the parse tree.
1225 .Ss "Warnings related to missing arguments"
1227 .It Sy "skipping empty request"
1229 The macro name is missing from a macro definition request,
1232 control statement or operation keyword lacks its required argument.
1233 .It Sy "conditional request controls empty scope"
1235 A conditional request is only useful if any of the following
1236 follows it on the same logical input line:
1241 keyword to open a multi-line scope.
1243 A request or macro or some text, resulting in a single-line scope.
1245 The immediate end of the logical line without any intervening whitespace,
1246 resulting in next-line scope.
1248 Here, a conditional request is followed by trailing whitespace only,
1249 and there is no other content on its logical input line.
1250 Note that it doesn't matter whether the logical input line is split
1251 across multiple physical input lines using
1253 line continuation characters.
1254 This is one of the rare cases
1255 where trailing whitespace is syntactically significant.
1256 The conditional request controls a scope containing whitespace only,
1257 so it is unlikely to have a significant effect,
1258 except that it may control a following
1261 .It Sy "skipping empty macro"
1263 The indicated macro has no arguments and hence no effect.
1264 .It Sy "empty block"
1276 block contains nothing in its body and will produce no output.
1277 .It Sy "empty argument, using 0n"
1279 The required width is missing after
1286 .It Sy "missing display type, using -ragged"
1290 macro is invoked without the required display type.
1291 .It Sy "list type is not the first argument"
1295 macro, at least one other argument precedes the type argument.
1298 utility copes with any argument order, but some other
1300 implementations do not.
1301 .It Sy "missing -width in -tag list, using 8n"
1310 .It Sy "missing utility name, using \(dq\(dq"
1314 macro is called without an argument before
1316 has first been called with an argument.
1317 .It Sy "missing function name, using \(dq\(dq"
1321 macro is called without an argument.
1322 No function name is printed.
1323 .It Sy "empty head in list item"
1335 macro lacks the required argument.
1336 The item head is left empty.
1337 .It Sy "empty list item"
1349 An empty list item is shown.
1350 .It Sy "missing argument, using next line"
1356 list has no arguments.
1359 uses the text or macros of the following line, if any, for the cell,
1360 other formatters may misformat the list.
1361 .It Sy "missing font type, using \efR"
1365 macro has no argument.
1366 It switches to the default font.
1367 .It Sy "unknown font type, using \efR"
1371 argument is invalid.
1372 The default font is used instead.
1373 .It Sy "nothing follows prefix"
1377 macro has no argument, or only one argument and no macro follows
1378 on the same input line.
1379 This defeats its purpose; in particular, spacing is not suppressed
1380 before the text or macros following on the next input line.
1381 .It Sy "empty reference block"
1385 macro is immediately followed by an
1387 macro on the next input line.
1388 Such an empty block does not produce any output.
1389 .It Sy "missing section argument"
1393 macro lacks its second, section number argument.
1394 The first argument, i.e. the name, is printed, but without subsequent
1396 .It Sy "missing -std argument, adding it"
1402 macro lacks the required
1409 even when it is not specified, but other implementations may not.
1410 .It Sy "missing option string, using \(dq\(dq"
1414 macro is invoked without any argument.
1415 An empty pair of square brackets is shown.
1416 .It Sy "missing resource identifier, using \(dq\(dq"
1422 macro is invoked without any argument.
1423 An empty pair of angle brackets is shown.
1424 .It Sy "missing eqn box, using \(dq\(dq"
1426 A diacritic mark or a binary operator is found,
1427 but there is nothing to the left of it.
1428 An empty box is inserted.
1430 .Ss "Warnings related to bad macro arguments"
1432 .It Sy "duplicate argument"
1438 macro has more than one
1445 All but the last instances of these arguments are ignored.
1446 .It Sy "skipping duplicate argument"
1450 macro has more than one
1455 All but the first of these arguments are ignored.
1456 .It Sy "skipping duplicate display type"
1460 macro has more than one type argument; the first one is used.
1461 .It Sy "skipping duplicate list type"
1465 macro has more than one type argument; the first one is used.
1466 .It Sy "skipping -width argument"
1480 .It Sy "wrong number of cells"
1483 list, the number of tabs or
1485 macros is less than the number expected from the list header line
1486 or exceeds the expected number by more than one.
1487 Missing cells remain empty, and all cells exceeding the number of
1488 columns are joined into one single cell.
1489 .It Sy "unknown AT&T UNIX version"
1493 macro has an invalid argument.
1494 It is used verbatim, with
1497 .It Sy "comma in function argument"
1503 macro contains a comma; it should probably be split into two arguments.
1504 .It Sy "parenthesis in function name"
1506 The first argument of an
1510 macro contains an opening or closing parenthesis; that's probably wrong,
1511 parentheses are added automatically.
1512 .It Sy "unknown library name"
1516 macro has an unknown name argument and will be rendered as
1517 .Qq library Dq Ar name .
1518 .It Sy "invalid content in Rs block"
1522 block contains plain text or non-% macros.
1523 The bogus content is left in the syntax tree.
1524 Formatting may be poor.
1525 .It Sy "invalid Boolean argument"
1529 macro has an argument other than
1533 The invalid argument is moved out of the macro, which leaves the macro
1534 empty, causing it to toggle the spacing mode.
1535 .It Sy "unknown font, skipping request"
1543 layout modifier has an unknown
1546 .It Sy "odd number of characters in request"
1550 request contains an odd number of characters.
1551 The last character is mapped to the blank character.
1553 .Ss "Warnings related to plain text"
1555 .It Sy "blank line in fill mode, using .sp"
1557 The meaning of blank input lines is only well-defined in non-fill mode:
1558 In fill mode, line breaks of text input lines are not supposed to be
1560 However, for compatibility with groff, blank lines in fill mode
1564 .It Sy "tab in filled text"
1566 The meaning of tab characters is only well-defined in non-fill mode:
1567 In fill mode, whitespace is not supposed to be significant
1568 on text input lines.
1569 As an implementation dependent choice, tab characters on text lines
1570 are passed through to the formatters in any case.
1571 Given that the text before the tab character will be filled,
1572 it is hard to predict which tab stop position the tab will advance to.
1573 .It Sy "new sentence, new line"
1575 A new sentence starts in the middle of a text line.
1576 Start it on a new input line to help formatters produce correct spacing.
1577 .It Sy "invalid escape sequence"
1579 An escape sequence has an invalid opening argument delimiter, lacks the
1580 closing argument delimiter, or the argument has too few characters.
1581 If the argument is incomplete,
1585 expand to an empty string,
1591 to the length of the incomplete argument.
1592 All other invalid escape sequences are ignored.
1593 .It Sy "undefined string, using \(dq\(dq"
1595 If a string is used without being defined before,
1596 its value is implicitly set to the empty string.
1597 However, defining strings explicitly before use
1598 keeps the code more readable.
1600 .Ss "Warnings related to tables"
1602 .It Sy "tbl line starts with span"
1604 The first cell in a table layout line is a horizontal span
1606 Data provided for this cell is ignored, and nothing is printed in the cell.
1607 .It Sy "tbl column starts with span"
1609 The first line of a table layout specification
1610 requests a vertical span
1612 Data provided for this cell is ignored, and nothing is printed in the cell.
1613 .It Sy "skipping vertical bar in tbl layout"
1615 A table layout specification contains more than two consecutive vertical bars.
1616 A double bar is printed, all additional bars are discarded.
1618 .Ss "Errors related to tables"
1620 .It Sy "non-alphabetic character in tbl options"
1622 The table options line contains a character other than a letter,
1623 blank, or comma where the beginning of an option name is expected.
1624 The character is ignored.
1625 .It Sy "skipping unknown tbl option"
1627 The table options line contains a string of letters that does not
1628 match any known option name.
1629 The word is ignored.
1630 .It Sy "missing tbl option argument"
1632 A table option that requires an argument is not followed by an
1633 opening parenthesis, or the opening parenthesis is immediately
1634 followed by a closing parenthesis.
1635 The option is ignored.
1636 .It Sy "wrong tbl option argument size"
1638 A table option argument contains an invalid number of characters.
1639 Both the option and the argument are ignored.
1640 .It Sy "empty tbl layout"
1642 A table layout specification is completely empty,
1643 specifying zero lines and zero columns.
1644 As a fallback, a single left-justified column is used.
1645 .It Sy "invalid character in tbl layout"
1647 A table layout specification contains a character that can neither
1648 be interpreted as a layout key character nor as a layout modifier,
1649 or a modifier precedes the first key.
1650 The invalid character is discarded.
1651 .It Sy "unmatched parenthesis in tbl layout"
1653 A table layout specification contains an opening parenthesis,
1654 but no matching closing parenthesis.
1655 The rest of the input line, starting from the parenthesis, has no effect.
1656 .It Sy "tbl without any data cells"
1658 A table does not contain any data cells.
1659 It will probably produce no output.
1660 .It Sy "ignoring data in spanned tbl cell"
1662 A table cell is marked as a horizontal span
1666 in the table layout, but it contains data.
1667 The data is ignored.
1668 .It Sy "ignoring extra tbl data cells"
1670 A data line contains more cells than the corresponding layout line.
1671 The data in the extra cells is ignored.
1672 .It Sy "data block open at end of tbl"
1674 A data block is opened with
1676 but never closed with a matching
1678 The remaining data lines of the table are all put into one cell,
1679 and any remaining cells stay empty.
1681 .Ss "Errors related to roff, mdoc, and man code"
1683 .It Sy "duplicate prologue macro"
1685 One of the prologue macros occurs more than once.
1686 The last instance overrides all previous ones.
1687 .It Sy "skipping late title macro"
1691 macro appears after the first non-prologue macro.
1692 Traditional formatters cannot handle this because
1693 they write the page header before parsing the document body.
1694 Even though this technical restriction does not apply to
1696 traditional semantics is preserved.
1697 The late macro is discarded including its arguments.
1698 .It Sy "input stack limit exceeded, infinite loop?"
1700 Explicit recursion limits are implemented for the following features,
1701 in order to prevent infinite loops:
1704 expansion of nested escape sequences
1705 including expansion of strings and number registers,
1707 expansion of nested user-defined macros,
1713 When a limit is hit, the output is incorrect, typically losing
1714 some content, but the parser can continue.
1715 .It Sy "skipping bad character"
1716 .Pq mdoc , man , roff
1717 The input file contains a byte that is not a printable
1720 The message mentions the character number.
1721 The offending byte is replaced with a question mark
1723 Consider editing the input file to replace the byte with an ASCII
1724 transliteration of the intended character.
1725 .It Sy "skipping unknown macro"
1726 .Pq mdoc , man , roff
1727 The first identifier on a request or macro line is neither recognized as a
1729 request, nor as a user-defined macro, nor, respectively, as an
1734 It may be mistyped or unsupported.
1735 The request or macro is discarded including its arguments.
1736 .It Sy "skipping insecure request"
1738 An input file attempted to run a shell command
1739 or to read or write an external file.
1740 Such attempts are denied for security reasons.
1741 .It Sy "skipping item outside list"
1745 macro occurs outside any
1750 delimiter occurs outside any pile.
1751 It is discarded including its arguments.
1752 .It Sy "skipping column outside column list"
1756 macro occurs outside any
1759 It is discarded including its arguments.
1760 .It Sy "skipping end of block that is not open"
1761 .Pq mdoc , man , eqn , tbl , roff
1762 Various syntax elements can only be used to explicitly close blocks
1763 that have previously been opened.
1766 block closing macro, a
1773 right delimiter or closing brace, or the end of an equation, table, or
1775 conditional request is encountered but no matching block is open.
1776 The offending request or macro is discarded.
1777 .It Sy "fewer RS blocks open, skipping"
1781 macro is invoked with an argument, but less than the specified number of
1787 .It Sy "inserting missing end of block"
1791 macros as well as tables require explicit closing by dedicated macros.
1792 A block that doesn't support bad nesting
1793 ends before all of its children are properly closed.
1794 The open child nodes are closed implicitly.
1795 .It Sy "appending missing end of block"
1796 .Pq mdoc , man , eqn , tbl , roff
1797 At the end of the document, an explicit
1805 block, an equation, table, or
1807 conditional or ignore block is still open.
1808 The open block is closed implicitly.
1809 .It Sy "escaped character not allowed in a name"
1811 Macro, string and register identifiers consist of printable,
1812 non-whitespace ASCII characters.
1813 Escape sequences and characters and strings expressed in terms of them
1814 cannot form part of a name.
1815 The first argument of an
1823 request, or any argument of an
1825 request, or the name of a request or user defined macro being called,
1826 is terminated by an escape sequence.
1832 the request has no effect at all.
1839 what was parsed up to this point is used as the arguments to the request,
1840 and the rest of the input line is discarded including the escape sequence.
1841 When parsing for a request or a user-defined macro name to be called,
1842 only the escape sequence is discarded.
1843 The characters preceding it are used as the request or macro name,
1844 the characters following it are used as the arguments to the request or macro.
1845 .It Sy "NOT IMPLEMENTED: Bd -file"
1847 For security reasons, the
1849 macro does not support the
1852 By requesting the inclusion of a sensitive file, a malicious document
1853 might otherwise trick a privileged user into inadvertently displaying
1854 the file on the screen, revealing the file content to bystanders.
1855 The argument is ignored including the file name following it.
1856 .It Sy "skipping display without arguments"
1860 block macro does not have any arguments.
1861 The block is discarded, and the block content is displayed in
1862 whatever mode was active before the block.
1863 .It Sy "missing list type, using -item"
1867 macro fails to specify the list type.
1868 .It Sy "argument is not numeric, using 1"
1872 request is not a number.
1873 .It Sy "missing manual name, using \(dq\(dq"
1877 or any call in the NAME section, lacks the required argument.
1878 .It Sy "uname(3) system call failed, using UNKNOWN"
1882 macro is called without arguments, and the
1887 can be compiled with
1889 .Fl D Cm OSNAME=\(dq\e\(dq Ar string Cm \e\(dq\(dq .
1891 .It Sy "unknown standard specifier"
1895 macro has an unknown argument and is discarded.
1896 .It Sy "skipping request without numeric argument"
1905 statement has a non-numeric or negative argument or no argument at all.
1906 The invalid request or statement is ignored.
1907 .It Sy "NOT IMPLEMENTED: .so with absolute path or \(dq..\(dq"
1909 For security reasons,
1913 file inclusion requests only with relative paths
1914 and only without ascending to any parent directory.
1915 By requesting the inclusion of a sensitive file, a malicious document
1916 might otherwise trick a privileged user into inadvertently displaying
1917 the file on the screen, revealing the file content to bystanders.
1919 only shows the path as it appears behind
1921 .It Sy ".so request failed"
1925 request requires reading an external file, but the file could not be
1928 only shows the path as it appears behind
1930 .It Sy "skipping all arguments"
1931 .Pq mdoc , man , eqn , roff
1947 macro in a list that don't support item heads, a
1966 block closing request is invoked with at least one argument.
1967 All arguments are ignored.
1968 .It Sy "skipping excess arguments"
1969 .Pq mdoc , man , roff
1970 A macro or request is invoked with too many arguments:
1971 .Bl -dash -offset 2n -width 2n -compact
1981 with more than one argument
1984 with another argument after
1990 with more than one argument or with a non-integer argument
1995 family with more than two arguments
1998 with more than three arguments
2001 with more than five arguments
2007 with invalid arguments
2009 The excess arguments are ignored.
2011 .Ss Unsupported features
2013 .It Sy "input too large"
2017 cannot handle input files larger than its arbitrary size limit
2018 of 2^31 bytes (2 Gigabytes).
2019 Since useful manuals are always small, this is not a problem in practice.
2020 Parsing is aborted as soon as the condition is detected.
2021 .It Sy "unsupported control character"
2023 An ASCII control character supported by other
2025 implementations but not by
2027 was found in an input file.
2028 It is replaced by a question mark.
2029 .It Sy "unsupported roff request"
2031 An input file contains a
2033 request supported by GNU troff or Heirloom troff but not by
2035 and it is likely that this will cause information loss
2036 or considerable misformatting.
2037 .It Sy "eqn delim option in tbl"
2039 The options line of a table defines equation delimiters.
2040 Any equation source code contained in the table will be printed unformatted.
2041 .It Sy "unsupported table layout modifier"
2043 A table layout specification contains an
2046 The modifier is discarded.
2047 .It Sy "ignoring macro in table"
2048 .Pq tbl , mdoc , man
2049 A table contains an invocation of an
2053 macro or of an undefined macro.
2054 The macro is ignored, and its arguments are handled
2055 as if they were a text line.
2067 utility first appeared in
2081 utility was written by
2082 .An Kristaps Dzonsons Aq Mt kristaps@bsd.lv
2083 and is maintained by
2084 .An Ingo Schwarze Aq Mt schwarze@openbsd.org .