1MANDOC(1) BSD General Commands Manual MANDOC(1)
2
4 mandoc — format manual pages
5
7 mandoc [-ac] [-I os=name] [-K encoding] [-mdoc | -man] [-O options]
8 [-T output] [-W level] [file ...]
9
11 The mandoc utility formats manual pages for display.
12 By default, mandoc reads mdoc(7) or man(7) text from stdin and produces
14 -T locale output.
15 The options are as follows:
17 -a If the standard output is a terminal device and -c is not speci‐
19 fied, use more(1) to paginate the output, just like man(1) would.
20 -c Copy the formatted manual pages to the standard output without
22 using more(1) to paginate them. This is the default. It can be
23 specified to override -a.
24 -I os=name
26 Override the default operating system name for the mdoc(7) Os and
27 for the man(7) TH macro.
28 -K encoding
30 Specify the input encoding. The supported encoding arguments are
31 us-ascii, iso-8859-1, and utf-8. If not specified, autodetection
32 uses the first match in the following list:
33 1. If the first three bytes of the input file are the UTF-8
35 byte order mark (BOM, 0xefbbbf), input is interpreted as
36 utf-8.
37 2. If the first or second line of the input file matches the
39 emacs mode line format
40 .\" -*- [...;] coding: encoding; -*-
42 then input is interpreted according to encoding.
44 3. If the first non-ASCII byte in the file introduces a valid
46 UTF-8 sequence, input is interpreted as utf-8.
47 4. Otherwise, input is interpreted as iso-8859-1.
49 -mdoc | -man
51 With -mdoc, all input files are interpreted as mdoc(7). With
52 -man, all input files are interpreted as man(7). By default, the
53 input language is automatically detected for each file: if the
54 first macro is Dd or Dt, the mdoc(7) parser is used; otherwise,
55 the man(7) parser is used. With other arguments, -m is silently
56 ignored.
57 -O options
59 Comma-separated output options. See the descriptions of the
60 individual output formats for supported options.
61 -T output
63 Select the output format. Supported values for the output argu‐
64 ment are ascii, html, the default of locale, man, markdown, pdf,
65 ps, tree, and utf8.
66 The special -T lint mode only parses the input and produces no
68 output. It implies -W all and redirects parser messages, which
69 usually appear on standard error output, to standard output.
70 -W level
72 Specify the minimum message level to be reported on the standard
73 error output and to affect the exit status. The level can be
74 base, style, warning, error, or unsupp. The base level automati‐
75 cally derives the operating system from the contents of the Os
76 macro, from the -Ios command line option, or from the uname(3)
77 return value. The levels openbsd and netbsd are variants of base
78 that bypass autodetection and request validation of base system
79 conventions for a particular operating system. The level all is
80 an alias for base. By default, mandoc is silent. See EXIT
81 STATUS and DIAGNOSTICS for details.
82 The special option -W stop tells mandoc to exit after parsing a
84 file that causes warnings or errors of at least the requested
85 level. No formatted output will be produced from that file. If
86 both a level and stop are requested, they can be joined with a
87 comma, for example -W error,stop.
88 file Read from the given input file. If multiple files are specified,
90 they are processed in the given order. If unspecified, mandoc
91 reads from standard input.
92 The options -fhklw are also supported and are documented in man(1). In
94 -f and -k mode, mandoc also supports the options -CMmOSs described in the
95 apropos(1) manual. The options -fkl are mutually exclusive and override
96 each other.
97 ASCII Output
99 Use -T ascii to force text output in 7-bit ASCII character encoding docu‐
100 mented in the ascii(7) manual page, ignoring the locale(1) set in the
101 environment.
102 Font styles are applied by using back-spaced encoding such that an under‐
104 lined character ‘c’ is rendered as ‘_\[bs]c’, where ‘\[bs]’ is the back-
105 space character number 8. Emboldened characters are rendered as
106 ‘c\[bs]c’. This markup is typically converted to appropriate terminal
107 sequences by the pager or ul(1). To remove the markup, pipe the output
108 to col(1) -b instead.
109 The special characters documented in mandoc_char(7) are rendered best-
111 effort in an ASCII equivalent. In particular, opening and closing
112 ‘single quotes’ are represented as characters number 0x60 and 0x27,
113 respectively, which agrees with all ASCII standards from 1965 to the lat‐
114 est revision (2012) and which matches the traditional way in which
115 roff(7) formatters represent single quotes in ASCII output. This correct
116 ASCII rendering may look strange with modern Unicode-compatible fonts
117 because contrary to ASCII, Unicode uses the code point U+0060 for the
118 grave accent only, never for an opening quote.
119 The following -O arguments are accepted:
121 indent=indent
123 The left margin for normal text is set to indent blank characters
124 instead of the default of five for mdoc(7) and seven for man(7).
125 Increasing this is not recommended; it may result in degraded
126 formatting, for example overfull lines or ugly line breaks. When
127 output is to a pager on a terminal that is less than 66 columns
128 wide, the default is reduced to three columns.
129 mdoc Format man(7) input files in mdoc(7) output style. Specifically,
131 this suppresses the two additional blank lines near the top and
132 the bottom of each page, and it implies -O indent=5. One useful
133 application is for checking that -T man output formats in the
134 same way as the mdoc(7) source it was generated from.
135 tag[=term]
137 If the formatted manual page is opened in a pager, go to the def‐
138 inition of the term rather than showing the manual page from the
139 beginning. If no term is specified, reuse the first command line
140 argument that is not a section number. If that argument is in
141 apropos(1) key=val format, only the val is used rather than the
142 argument as a whole. This is useful for commands like ‘man -akO
143 tag Ic=ulimit’ to search for a keyword and jump right to its def‐
144 inition in the matching manual pages.
145 width=width
147 The output width is set to width instead of the default of 78.
148 When output is to a pager on a terminal that is less than 79 col‐
149 umns wide, the default is reduced to one less than the terminal
150 width. In any case, lines that are output in literal mode are
151 never wrapped and may exceed the output width.
152 HTML Output
154 Output produced by -T html conforms to HTML5 using optional self-closing
155 tags. Default styles use only CSS1. Equations rendered from eqn(7)
156 blocks use MathML.
157 The file /usr/share/misc/mandoc.css documents style-sheet classes avail‐
159 able for customising output. If a style-sheet is not specified with -O
160 style, -T html defaults to simple output (via an embedded style-sheet)
161 readable in any graphical or text-based web browser.
162 Non-ASCII characters are rendered as hexadecimal Unicode character refer‐
164 ences.
165 The following -O arguments are accepted:
167 fragment
169 Omit the <!DOCTYPE> declaration and the <html>, <head>, and
170 <body> elements and only emit the subtree below the <body> ele‐
171 ment. The style argument will be ignored. This is useful when
172 embedding manual content within existing documents.
173 includes=fmt
175 The string fmt, for example, ../src/%I.html, is used as a tem‐
176 plate for linked header files (usually via the In macro).
177 Instances of ‘%I’ are replaced with the include filename. The
178 default is not to present a hyperlink.
179 man=fmt[;fmt]
181 The string fmt, for example, ../html%S/%N.%S.html, is used as a
182 template for linked manuals (usually via the Xr macro).
183 Instances of ‘%N’ and ‘%S’ are replaced with the linked manual's
184 name and section, respectively. If no section is included, sec‐
185 tion 1 is assumed. The default is not to present a hyperlink.
186 If two formats are given and a file %N.%S exists in the current
187 directory, the first format is used; otherwise, the second format
188 is used.
189 style=style.css
191 The file style.css is used for an external style-sheet. This
192 must be a valid absolute or relative URI.
193 toc If an input file contains at least two non-standard sections,
195 print a table of contents near the beginning of the output.
196 Locale Output
198 By default, mandoc automatically selects UTF-8 or ASCII output according
199 to the current locale(1). If any of the environment variables LC_ALL,
200 LC_CTYPE, or LANG are set and the first one that is set selects the UTF-8
201 character encoding, it produces UTF-8 Output; otherwise, it falls back to
202 ASCII Output. This output mode can also be selected explicitly with -T
203 locale.
204 Man Output
206 Use -T man to translate mdoc(7) input into man(7) output format. This is
207 useful for distributing manual sources to legacy systems lacking mdoc(7)
208 formatters.
209 If the input format of a file is man(7), the input is copied to the out‐
211 put, expanding any roff(7) so requests. The parser is also run, and as
212 usual, the -W level controls which DIAGNOSTICS are displayed before copy‐
213 ing the input to the output.
214 Markdown Output
216 Use -T markdown to translate mdoc(7) input to the markdown format con‐
217 forming to John Gruber's 2004 specification:
218 http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax.text.
219 The output also almost conforms to the CommonMark: http://commonmark.org/
220 specification.
221 The character set used for the markdown output is ASCII. Non-ASCII char‐
223 acters are encoded as HTML entities. Since that is not possible in lit‐
224 eral font contexts, because these are rendered as code spans and code
225 blocks in the markdown output, non-ASCII characters are transliterated to
226 ASCII approximations in these contexts.
227 Markdown is a very weak markup language, so all semantic markup is lost,
229 and even part of the presentational markup may be lost. Do not use this
230 as an intermediate step in converting to HTML; instead, use -T html
231 directly.
232 The man(7), tbl(7), and eqn(7) input languages are not supported by -T
234 markdown output mode.
235 PDF Output
237 PDF-1.1 output may be generated by -T pdf. See PostScript Output for -O
238 arguments and defaults.
239 PostScript Output
241 PostScript "Adobe-3.0" Level-2 pages may be generated by -T ps. Output
242 pages default to letter sized and are rendered in the Times font family,
243 11-point. Margins are calculated as 1/9 the page length and width.
244 Line-height is 1.4m.
245 Special characters are rendered as in ASCII Output.
247 The following -O arguments are accepted:
249 paper=name
251 The paper size name may be one of a3, a4, a5, legal, or letter.
252 You may also manually specify dimensions as NNxNN, width by
253 height in millimetres. If an unknown value is encountered,
254 letter is used.
255 UTF-8 Output
257 Use -T utf8 to force text output in UTF-8 multi-byte character encoding,
258 ignoring the locale(1) settings in the environment. See ASCII Output
259 regarding font styles and -O arguments.
260 On operating systems lacking locale or wide character support, and on
262 those where the internal character representation is not UCS-4, mandoc
263 always falls back to ASCII Output.
264 Syntax tree output
266 Use -T tree to show a human readable representation of the syntax tree.
267 It is useful for debugging the source code of manual pages. The exact
268 format is subject to change, so don't write parsers for it.
269 The first paragraph shows meta data found in the mdoc(7) prologue, on the
271 man(7) TH line, or the fallbacks used.
272 In the tree dump, each output line shows one syntax tree node. Child
274 nodes are indented with respect to their parent node. The columns are:
275 1. For macro nodes, the macro name; for text and tbl(7) nodes, the con‐
277 tent. There is a special format for eqn(7) nodes.
278 2. Node type (text, elem, block, head, body, body-end, tail, tbl, eqn).
279 3. Flags:
280 - An opening parenthesis if the node is an opening delimiter.
281 - An asterisk if the node starts a new input line.
282 - The input line number (starting at one).
283 - A colon.
284 - The input column number (starting at one).
285 - A closing parenthesis if the node is a closing delimiter.
286 - A full stop if the node ends a sentence.
287 - BROKEN if the node is a block broken by another block.
288 - NOSRC if the node is not in the input file, but automatically
289 generated from macros.
290 - NOPRT if the node is not supposed to generate output for any
291 output format.
292 The following -O argument is accepted:
294 noval Skip validation and show the unvalidated syntax tree. This can
296 help to find out whether a given behaviour is caused by the
297 parser or by the validator. Meta data is not available in this
298 case.
299
301 LC_CTYPE The character encoding locale(1). When Locale Output is
302 selected, it decides whether to use ASCII or UTF-8 output for‐
303 mat. It never affects the interpretation of input files.
304 MANPAGER Any non-empty value of the environment variable MANPAGER is
306 used instead of the standard pagination program, more(1); see
307 man(1) for details. Only used if -a or -l is specified.
308 PAGER Specifies the pagination program to use when MANPAGER is not
310 defined. If neither PAGER nor MANPAGER is defined, more(1) -s
311 is used. Only used if -a or -l is specified.
312
314 The mandoc utility exits with one of the following values, controlled by
315 the message level associated with the -W option:
316 0 No base system convention violations, style suggestions, warn‐
318 ings, or errors occurred, or those that did were ignored because
319 they were lower than the requested level.
320 1 At least one base system convention violation or style suggestion
321 occurred, but no warning or error, and -W base or -W style was
322 specified.
323 2 At least one warning occurred, but no error, and -W warning or a
324 lower level was requested.
325 3 At least one parsing error occurred, but no unsupported feature
326 was encountered, and -W error or a lower level was requested.
327 4 At least one unsupported feature was encountered, and -W unsupp
328 or a lower level was requested.
329 5 Invalid command line arguments were specified. No input files
330 have been read.
331 6 An operating system error occurred, for example exhaustion of
332 memory, file descriptors, or process table entries. Such errors
333 cause mandoc to exit at once, possibly in the middle of parsing
334 or formatting a file.
335 Note that selecting -T lint output mode implies -W all.
337
339 To page manuals to the terminal:
340 $ mandoc -l mandoc.1 man.1 apropos.1 makewhatis.8
342 To produce HTML manuals with /usr/share/misc/mandoc.css as the style-
344 sheet:
345 $ mandoc -T html -O style=/usr/share/misc/mandoc.css mdoc.7 >
347 mdoc.7.html
348 To check over a large set of manuals:
350 $ mandoc -T lint `find /usr/src -name \*\.[1-9]`
352 To produce a series of PostScript manuals for A4 paper:
354 $ mandoc -T ps -O paper=a4 mdoc.7 man.7 > manuals.ps
356 Convert a modern mdoc(7) manual to the older man(7) format, for use on
358 systems lacking an mdoc(7) parser:
359 $ mandoc -T man foo.mdoc > foo.man
361
363 Messages displayed by mandoc follow this format:
364 mandoc: file:line:column: level: message: macro arguments (os)
366 The first three fields identify the file name, line number, and column
368 number of the input file where the message was triggered. The line and
369 column numbers start at 1. Both are omitted for messages referring to an
370 input file as a whole. All level and message strings are explained
371 below. The name of the macro triggering the message and its arguments
372 are omitted where meaningless. The os operating system specifier is
373 omitted for messages that are relevant for all operating systems. Fatal
374 messages about invalid command line arguments or operating system errors,
375 for example when memory is exhausted, may also omit the file and level
376 fields.
377 Message levels have the following meanings:
379 unsupp An input file uses unsupported low-level roff(7) features. The
381 output may be incomplete and/or misformatted, so using GNU troff
382 instead of mandoc to process the file may be preferable.
383 error Indicates a risk of information loss or severe misformatting, in
385 most cases caused by serious syntax errors.
386 warning Indicates a risk that the information shown or its formatting
388 may mismatch the author's intent in minor ways. Additionally,
389 syntax errors are classified at least as warnings, even if they
390 do not usually cause misformatting.
391 style An input file uses dubious or discouraged style. This is not a
393 complaint about the syntax, and probably neither formatting nor
394 portability are in danger. While great care is taken to avoid
395 false positives on the higher message levels, the style level
396 tries to reduce the probability that issues go unnoticed, so it
397 may occasionally issue bogus suggestions. Please use your good
398 judgement to decide whether any particular style suggestion
399 really justifies a change to the input file.
400 base A convention used in the base system of a specific operating
402 system is not adhered to. These are not markup mistakes, and
403 neither the quality of formatting nor portability are in danger.
404 Messages of the base level are printed with the more intuitive
405 style level tag.
406 Messages of the base, style, warning, error, and unsupp levels except
408 those about non-existent or unreadable input files are hidden unless
409 their level, or a lower level, is requested using a -W option or -T lint
410 output mode.
411 As indicated below, all base and some style checks are only performed if
413 a specific operating system name occurs in the arguments of the -W com‐
414 mand line option, of the Os macro, of the -Ios command line option, or,
415 if neither are present, in the return value of the uname(3) function.
416 Conventions for base system manuals
418 Mdocdate found
419 (mdoc, NetBSD) The Dd macro uses CVS Mdocdate keyword substitution, which
420 is not supported by the NetBSD base system. Consider using the conven‐
421 tional “Month dd, yyyy” format instead.
422 Mdocdate missing
424 (mdoc, OpenBSD) The Dd macro does not use CVS Mdocdate keyword substitu‐
425 tion, but using it is conventionally expected in the OpenBSD base system.
426 unknown architecture
428 (mdoc, OpenBSD, NetBSD) The third argument of the Dt macro does not match
429 any of the architectures this operating system is running on.
430 operating system explicitly specified
432 (mdoc, OpenBSD, NetBSD) The Os macro has an argument. In the base sys‐
433 tem, it is conventionally left blank.
434 RCS id missing
436 (OpenBSD, NetBSD) The manual page lacks the comment line with the RCS
437 identifier generated by CVS OpenBSD or NetBSD keyword substitution as
438 conventionally used in these operating systems.
439 referenced manual not found
441 (mdoc) An Xr macro references a manual page that is not found in the base
442 system. The path to look for base system manuals is configurable at com‐
443 pile time and defaults to /usr/share/man: /usr/X11R6/man.
444 Style suggestions
446 legacy man(7) date format
447 (mdoc) The Dd macro uses the legacy man(7) date format “yyyy-dd-mm”.
448 Consider using the conventional mdoc(7) date format “Month dd, yyyy”
449 instead.
450 normalizing date format to: ...
452 (mdoc, man) The Dd or TH macro provides an abbreviated month name or a
453 day number with a leading zero. In the formatted output, the month name
454 is written out in full and the leading zero is omitted.
455 lower case character in document title
457 (mdoc, man) The title is still used as given in the Dt or TH macro.
458 duplicate RCS id
460 A single manual page contains two copies of the RCS identifier for the
461 same operating system. Consider deleting the later instance and moving
462 the first one up to the top of the page.
463 possible typo in section name
465 (mdoc) Fuzzy string matching revealed that the argument of an Sh macro is
466 similar, but not identical to a standard section name.
467 unterminated quoted argument
469 (roff) Macro arguments can be enclosed in double quote characters such
470 that space characters and macro names contained in the quoted argument
471 need not be escaped. The closing quote of the last argument of a macro
472 can be omitted. However, omitting it is not recommended because it makes
473 the code harder to read.
474 useless macro
476 (mdoc) A Bt, Tn, or Ud macro was found. Simply delete it: it serves no
477 useful purpose.
478 consider using OS macro
480 (mdoc) A string was found in plain text or in a Bx macro that could be
481 represented using Ox, Nx, Fx, or Dx.
482 errnos out of order
484 (mdoc, NetBSD) The Er items in a Bl list are not in alphabetical order.
485 duplicate errno
487 (mdoc, NetBSD) A Bl list contains two consecutive It entries describing
488 the same Er number.
489 trailing delimiter
491 (mdoc) The last argument of an Ex, Fo, Nd, Nm, Os, Sh, Ss, St, or Sx
492 macro ends with a trailing delimiter. This is usually bad style and
493 often indicates typos. Most likely, the delimiter can be removed.
494 no blank before trailing delimiter
496 (mdoc) The last argument of a macro that supports trailing delimiter
497 arguments is longer than one byte and ends with a trailing delimiter.
498 Consider inserting a blank such that the delimiter becomes a separate
499 argument, thus moving it out of the scope of the macro.
500 fill mode already enabled, skipping
502 (man) A fi request occurs even though the document is still in fill mode,
503 or already switched back to fill mode. It has no effect.
504 fill mode already disabled, skipping
506 (man) An nf request occurs even though the document already switched to
507 no-fill mode and did not switch back to fill mode yet. It has no effect.
508 verbatim "--", maybe consider using \(em
510 (mdoc) Even though the ASCII output device renders an em-dash as "--",
511 that is not a good way to write it in an input file because it renders
512 poorly on all other output devices.
513 function name without markup
515 (mdoc) A word followed by an empty pair of parentheses occurs on a text
516 line. Consider using an Fn or Xr macro.
517 whitespace at end of input line
519 (mdoc, man, roff) Whitespace at the end of input lines is almost never
520 semantically significant — but in the odd case where it might be, it is
521 extremely confusing when reviewing and maintaining documents.
522 bad comment style
524 (roff) Comment lines start with a dot, a backslash, and a double-quote
525 character. The mandoc utility treats the line as a comment line even
526 without the backslash, but leaving out the backslash might not be porta‐
527 ble.
528 Warnings related to the document prologue
530 missing manual title, using UNTITLED
531 (mdoc) A Dt macro has no arguments, or there is no Dt macro before the
532 first non-prologue macro.
533 missing manual title, using ""
535 (man) There is no TH macro, or it has no arguments.
536 missing manual section, using ""
538 (mdoc, man) A Dt or TH macro lacks the mandatory section argument.
539 unknown manual section
541 (mdoc) The section number in a Dt line is invalid, but still used.
542 missing date, using today's date
544 (mdoc, man) The document was parsed as mdoc(7) and it has no Dd macro, or
545 the Dd macro has no arguments or only empty arguments; or the document
546 was parsed as man(7) and it has no TH macro, or the TH macro has less
547 than three arguments or its third argument is empty.
548 cannot parse date, using it verbatim
550 (mdoc, man) The date given in a Dd or TH macro does not follow the con‐
551 ventional format.
552 date in the future, using it anyway
554 (mdoc, man) The date given in a Dd or TH macro is more than a day ahead
555 of the current system time(3).
556 missing Os macro, using ""
558 (mdoc) The default or current system is not shown in this case.
559 late prologue macro
561 (mdoc) A Dd or Os macro occurs after some non-prologue macro, but still
562 takes effect.
563 prologue macros out of order
565 (mdoc) The prologue macros are not given in the conventional order Dd,
566 Dt, Os. All three macros are used even when given in another order.
567 Warnings regarding document structure
569 .so is fragile, better use ln(1)
570 (roff) Including files only works when the parser program runs with the
571 correct current working directory.
572 no document body
574 (mdoc, man) The document body contains neither text nor macros. An empty
575 document is shown, consisting only of a header and a footer line.
576 content before first section header
578 (mdoc, man) Some macros or text precede the first Sh or SH section
579 header. The offending macros and text are parsed and added to the top
580 level of the syntax tree, outside any section block.
581 first section is not NAME
583 (mdoc) The argument of the first Sh macro is not ‘NAME’. This may con‐
584 fuse makewhatis(8) and apropos(1).
585 NAME section without Nm before Nd
587 (mdoc) The NAME section does not contain any Nm child macro before the
588 first Nd macro.
589 NAME section without description
591 (mdoc) The NAME section lacks the mandatory Nd child macro.
592 description not at the end of NAME
594 (mdoc) The NAME section does contain an Nd child macro, but other content
595 follows it.
596 bad NAME section content
598 (mdoc) The NAME section contains plain text or macros other than Nm and
599 Nd.
600 missing comma before name
602 (mdoc) The NAME section contains an Nm macro that is neither the first
603 one nor preceded by a comma.
604 missing description line, using ""
606 (mdoc) The Nd macro lacks the required argument. The title line of the
607 manual will end after the dash.
608 description line outside NAME section
610 (mdoc) An Nd macro appears outside the NAME section. The arguments are
611 printed anyway and the following text is used for apropos(1), but none of
612 that behaviour is portable.
613 sections out of conventional order
615 (mdoc) A standard section occurs after another section it usually pre‐
616 cedes. All section titles are used as given, and the order of sections
617 is not changed.
618 duplicate section title
620 (mdoc) The same standard section title occurs more than once.
621 unexpected section
623 (mdoc) A standard section header occurs in a section of the manual where
624 it normally isn't useful.
625 cross reference to self
627 (mdoc) An Xr macro refers to a name and section matching the section of
628 the present manual page and a name mentioned in an Nm macro in the NAME
629 or SYNOPSIS section, or in an Fn or Fo macro in the SYNOPSIS. Consider
630 using Nm or Fn instead of Xr.
631 unusual Xr order
633 (mdoc) In the SEE ALSO section, an Xr macro with a lower section number
634 follows one with a higher number, or two Xr macros referring to the same
635 section are out of alphabetical order.
636 unusual Xr punctuation
638 (mdoc) In the SEE ALSO section, punctuation between two Xr macros differs
639 from a single comma, or there is trailing punctuation after the last Xr
640 macro.
641 AUTHORS section without An macro
643 (mdoc) An AUTHORS sections contains no An macros, or only empty ones.
644 Probably, there are author names lacking markup.
645 Warnings related to macros and nesting
647 obsolete macro
648 (mdoc) See the mdoc(7) manual for replacements.
649 macro neither callable nor escaped
651 (mdoc) The name of a macro that is not callable appears on a macro line.
652 It is printed verbatim. If the intention is to call it, move it to its
653 own input line; otherwise, escape it by prepending ‘\&’.
654 skipping paragraph macro
656 In mdoc(7) documents, this happens
657 - at the beginning and end of sections and subsections
658 - right before non-compact lists and displays
659 - at the end of items in non-column, non-compact lists
660 - and for multiple consecutive paragraph macros.
661 In man(7) documents, it happens
662 - for empty P, PP, and LP macros
663 - for IP macros having neither head nor body arguments
664 - for br or sp right after SH or SS
665 moving paragraph macro out of list
667 (mdoc) A list item in a Bl list contains a trailing paragraph macro. The
668 paragraph macro is moved after the end of the list.
669 skipping no-space macro
671 (mdoc) An input line begins with an Ns macro, or the next argument after
672 an Ns macro is an isolated closing delimiter. The macro is ignored.
673 blocks badly nested
675 (mdoc) If two blocks intersect, one should completely contain the other.
676 Otherwise, rendered output is likely to look strange in any output for‐
677 mat, and rendering in SGML-based output formats is likely to be outright
678 wrong because such languages do not support badly nested blocks at all.
679 Typical examples of badly nested blocks are "Ao Bo Ac Bc" and "Ao Bq Ac".
680 In these examples, Ac breaks Bo and Bq, respectively.
681 nested displays are not portable
683 (mdoc) A Bd, D1, or Dl display occurs nested inside another Bd display.
684 This works with mandoc, but fails with most other implementations.
685 moving content out of list
687 (mdoc) A Bl list block contains text or macros before the first It macro.
688 The offending children are moved before the beginning of the list.
689 first macro on line
691 Inside a Bl -column list, a Ta macro occurs as the first macro on a line,
692 which is not portable.
693 line scope broken
695 (man) While parsing the next-line scope of the previous macro, another
696 macro is found that prematurely terminates the previous one. The previ‐
697 ous, interrupted macro is deleted from the parse tree.
698 Warnings related to missing arguments
700 skipping empty request
701 (roff, eqn) The macro name is missing from a macro definition request, or
702 an eqn(7) control statement or operation keyword lacks its required argu‐
703 ment.
704 conditional request controls empty scope
706 (roff) A conditional request is only useful if any of the following fol‐
707 lows it on the same logical input line:
708 - The ‘\{’ keyword to open a multi-line scope.
709 - A request or macro or some text, resulting in a single-line scope.
710 - The immediate end of the logical line without any intervening white‐
711 space, resulting in next-line scope.
712 Here, a conditional request is followed by trailing whitespace only, and
713 there is no other content on its logical input line. Note that it
714 doesn't matter whether the logical input line is split across multiple
715 physical input lines using ‘\’ line continuation characters. This is one
716 of the rare cases where trailing whitespace is syntactically significant.
717 The conditional request controls a scope containing whitespace only, so
718 it is unlikely to have a significant effect, except that it may control a
719 following el clause.
720 skipping empty macro
722 (mdoc) The indicated macro has no arguments and hence no effect.
723 empty block
725 (mdoc, man) A Bd, Bk, Bl, D1, Dl, MT, RS, or UR block contains nothing in
726 its body and will produce no output.
727 empty argument, using 0n
729 (mdoc) The required width is missing after Bd or Bl -offset or -width.
730 missing display type, using -ragged
732 (mdoc) The Bd macro is invoked without the required display type.
733 list type is not the first argument
735 (mdoc) In a Bl macro, at least one other argument precedes the type argu‐
736 ment. The mandoc utility copes with any argument order, but some other
737 mdoc(7) implementations do not.
738 missing -width in -tag list, using 8n
740 (mdoc) Every Bl macro having the -tag argument requires -width, too.
741 missing utility name, using ""
743 (mdoc) The Ex -std macro is called without an argument before Nm has
744 first been called with an argument.
745 missing function name, using ""
747 (mdoc) The Fo macro is called without an argument. No function name is
748 printed.
749 empty head in list item
751 (mdoc) In a Bl -diag, -hang, -inset, -ohang, or -tag list, an It macro
752 lacks the required argument. The item head is left empty.
753 empty list item
755 (mdoc) In a Bl -bullet, -dash, -enum, or -hyphen list, an It block is
756 empty. An empty list item is shown.
757 missing argument, using next line
759 (mdoc) An It macro in a Bd -column list has no arguments. While mandoc
760 uses the text or macros of the following line, if any, for the cell,
761 other formatters may misformat the list.
762 missing font type, using \fR
764 (mdoc) A Bf macro has no argument. It switches to the default font.
765 unknown font type, using \fR
767 (mdoc) The Bf argument is invalid. The default font is used instead.
768 nothing follows prefix
770 (mdoc) A Pf macro has no argument, or only one argument and no macro fol‐
771 lows on the same input line. This defeats its purpose; in particular,
772 spacing is not suppressed before the text or macros following on the next
773 input line.
774 empty reference block
776 (mdoc) An Rs macro is immediately followed by an Re macro on the next
777 input line. Such an empty block does not produce any output.
778 missing section argument
780 (mdoc) An Xr macro lacks its second, section number argument. The first
781 argument, i.e. the name, is printed, but without subsequent parentheses.
782 missing -std argument, adding it
784 (mdoc) An Ex or Rv macro lacks the required -std argument. The mandoc
785 utility assumes -std even when it is not specified, but other implementa‐
786 tions may not.
787 missing option string, using ""
789 (man) The OP macro is invoked without any argument. An empty pair of
790 square brackets is shown.
791 missing resource identifier, using ""
793 (man) The MT or UR macro is invoked without any argument. An empty pair
794 of angle brackets is shown.
795 missing eqn box, using ""
797 (eqn) A diacritic mark or a binary operator is found, but there is noth‐
798 ing to the left of it. An empty box is inserted.
799 Warnings related to bad macro arguments
801 duplicate argument
802 (mdoc) A Bd or Bl macro has more than one -compact, more than one
803 -offset, or more than one -width argument. All but the last instances of
804 these arguments are ignored.
805 skipping duplicate argument
807 (mdoc) An An macro has more than one -split or -nosplit argument. All
808 but the first of these arguments are ignored.
809 skipping duplicate display type
811 (mdoc) A Bd macro has more than one type argument; the first one is used.
812 skipping duplicate list type
814 (mdoc) A Bl macro has more than one type argument; the first one is used.
815 skipping -width argument
817 (mdoc) A Bl -column, -diag, -ohang, -inset, or -item list has a -width
818 argument. That has no effect.
819 wrong number of cells
821 In a line of a Bl -column list, the number of tabs or Ta macros is less
822 than the number expected from the list header line or exceeds the
823 expected number by more than one. Missing cells remain empty, and all
824 cells exceeding the number of columns are joined into one single cell.
825 unknown AT&T UNIX version
827 (mdoc) An At macro has an invalid argument. It is used verbatim, with
828 "AT&T UNIX " prefixed to it.
829 comma in function argument
831 (mdoc) An argument of an Fa or Fn macro contains a comma; it should prob‐
832 ably be split into two arguments.
833 parenthesis in function name
835 (mdoc) The first argument of an Fc or Fn macro contains an opening or
836 closing parenthesis; that's probably wrong, parentheses are added auto‐
837 matically.
838 unknown library name
840 (mdoc, not on OpenBSD) An Lb macro has an unknown name argument and will
841 be rendered as "library “name”".
842 invalid content in Rs block
844 (mdoc) An Rs block contains plain text or non-% macros. The bogus con‐
845 tent is left in the syntax tree. Formatting may be poor.
846 invalid Boolean argument
848 (mdoc) An Sm macro has an argument other than on or off. The invalid
849 argument is moved out of the macro, which leaves the macro empty, causing
850 it to toggle the spacing mode.
851 argument contains two font escapes
853 (roff) The second argument of a char request contains more than one font
854 escape sequence. A wrong font may remain active after using the charac‐
855 ter.
856 unknown font, skipping request
858 (man, tbl) A roff(7) ft request or a tbl(7) f layout modifier has an
859 unknown font argument.
860 odd number of characters in request
862 (roff) A tr request contains an odd number of characters. The last char‐
863 acter is mapped to the blank character.
864 Warnings related to plain text
866 blank line in fill mode, using .sp
867 (mdoc) The meaning of blank input lines is only well-defined in non-fill
868 mode: In fill mode, line breaks of text input lines are not supposed to
869 be significant. However, for compatibility with groff, blank lines in
870 fill mode are replaced with sp requests.
871 tab in filled text
873 (mdoc, man) The meaning of tab characters is only well-defined in non-
874 fill mode: In fill mode, whitespace is not supposed to be significant on
875 text input lines. As an implementation dependent choice, tab characters
876 on text lines are passed through to the formatters in any case. Given
877 that the text before the tab character will be filled, it is hard to pre‐
878 dict which tab stop position the tab will advance to.
879 new sentence, new line
881 (mdoc) A new sentence starts in the middle of a text line. Start it on a
882 new input line to help formatters produce correct spacing.
883 invalid escape sequence
885 (roff) An escape sequence has an invalid opening argument delimiter,
886 lacks the closing argument delimiter, the argument is of an invalid form,
887 or it is a character escape sequence with an invalid name. If the argu‐
888 ment is incomplete, \* and \n expand to an empty string, \B to the digit
889 ‘0’, and \w to the length of the incomplete argument. All other invalid
890 escape sequences are ignored.
891 undefined escape, printing literally
893 (roff) In an escape sequence, the first character right after the leading
894 backslash is invalid. That character is printed literally, which is
895 equivalent to ignoring the backslash.
896 undefined string, using ""
898 (roff) If a string is used without being defined before, its value is
899 implicitly set to the empty string. However, defining strings explicitly
900 before use keeps the code more readable.
901 Warnings related to tables
903 tbl line starts with span
904 (tbl) The first cell in a table layout line is a horizontal span (‘s’).
905 Data provided for this cell is ignored, and nothing is printed in the
906 cell.
907 tbl column starts with span
909 (tbl) The first line of a table layout specification requests a vertical
910 span (‘^’). Data provided for this cell is ignored, and nothing is
911 printed in the cell.
912 skipping vertical bar in tbl layout
914 (tbl) A table layout specification contains more than two consecutive
915 vertical bars. A double bar is printed, all additional bars are dis‐
916 carded.
917 Errors related to tables
919 non-alphabetic character in tbl options
920 (tbl) The table options line contains a character other than a letter,
921 blank, or comma where the beginning of an option name is expected. The
922 character is ignored.
923 skipping unknown tbl option
925 (tbl) The table options line contains a string of letters that does not
926 match any known option name. The word is ignored.
927 missing tbl option argument
929 (tbl) A table option that requires an argument is not followed by an
930 opening parenthesis, or the opening parenthesis is immediately followed
931 by a closing parenthesis. The option is ignored.
932 wrong tbl option argument size
934 (tbl) A table option argument contains an invalid number of characters.
935 Both the option and the argument are ignored.
936 empty tbl layout
938 (tbl) A table layout specification is completely empty, specifying zero
939 lines and zero columns. As a fallback, a single left-justified column is
940 used.
941 invalid character in tbl layout
943 (tbl) A table layout specification contains a character that can neither
944 be interpreted as a layout key character nor as a layout modifier, or a
945 modifier precedes the first key. The invalid character is discarded.
946 unmatched parenthesis in tbl layout
948 (tbl) A table layout specification contains an opening parenthesis, but
949 no matching closing parenthesis. The rest of the input line, starting
950 from the parenthesis, has no effect.
951 tbl without any data cells
953 (tbl) A table does not contain any data cells. It will probably produce
954 no output.
955 ignoring data in spanned tbl cell
957 (tbl) A table cell is marked as a horizontal span (‘s’) or vertical span
958 (‘^’) in the table layout, but it contains data. The data is ignored.
959 ignoring extra tbl data cells
961 (tbl) A data line contains more cells than the corresponding layout line.
962 The data in the extra cells is ignored.
963 data block open at end of tbl
965 (tbl) A data block is opened with T{, but never closed with a matching
966 T}. The remaining data lines of the table are all put into one cell, and
967 any remaining cells stay empty.
968 Errors related to roff, mdoc, and man code
970 duplicate prologue macro
971 (mdoc) One of the prologue macros occurs more than once. The last
972 instance overrides all previous ones.
973 skipping late title macro
975 (mdoc) The Dt macro appears after the first non-prologue macro. Tradi‐
976 tional formatters cannot handle this because they write the page header
977 before parsing the document body. Even though this technical restriction
978 does not apply to mandoc, traditional semantics is preserved. The late
979 macro is discarded including its arguments.
980 input stack limit exceeded, infinite loop?
982 (roff) Explicit recursion limits are implemented for the following fea‐
983 tures, in order to prevent infinite loops:
984 - expansion of nested escape sequences including expansion of strings
985 and number registers,
986 - expansion of nested user-defined macros,
987 - and so file inclusion.
988 When a limit is hit, the output is incorrect, typically losing some con‐
989 tent, but the parser can continue.
990 skipping bad character
992 (mdoc, man, roff) The input file contains a byte that is not a printable
993 ascii(7) character. The message mentions the character number. The
994 offending byte is replaced with a question mark (‘?’). Consider editing
995 the input file to replace the byte with an ASCII transliteration of the
996 intended character.
997 skipping unknown macro
999 (mdoc, man, roff) The first identifier on a request or macro line is nei‐
1000 ther recognized as a roff(7) request, nor as a user-defined macro, nor,
1001 respectively, as an mdoc(7) or man(7) macro. It may be mistyped or
1002 unsupported. The request or macro is discarded including its arguments.
1003 skipping request outside macro
1005 (roff) A shift or return request occurs outside any macro definition and
1006 has no effect.
1007 skipping insecure request
1009 (roff) An input file attempted to run a shell command or to read or write
1010 an external file. Such attempts are denied for security reasons.
1011 skipping item outside list
1013 (mdoc, eqn) An It macro occurs outside any Bl list, or an eqn(7) above
1014 delimiter occurs outside any pile. It is discarded including its argu‐
1015 ments.
1016 skipping column outside column list
1018 (mdoc) A Ta macro occurs outside any Bl -column block. It is discarded
1019 including its arguments.
1020 skipping end of block that is not open
1022 (mdoc, man, eqn, tbl, roff) Various syntax elements can only be used to
1023 explicitly close blocks that have previously been opened. An mdoc(7)
1024 block closing macro, a man(7) ME, RE or UE macro, an eqn(7) right delim‐
1025 iter or closing brace, or the end of an equation, table, or roff(7) con‐
1026 ditional request is encountered but no matching block is open. The
1027 offending request or macro is discarded.
1028 fewer RS blocks open, skipping
1030 (man) The RE macro is invoked with an argument, but less than the speci‐
1031 fied number of RS blocks is open. The RE macro is discarded.
1032 inserting missing end of block
1034 (mdoc, tbl) Various mdoc(7) macros as well as tables require explicit
1035 closing by dedicated macros. A block that doesn't support bad nesting
1036 ends before all of its children are properly closed. The open child
1037 nodes are closed implicitly.
1038 appending missing end of block
1040 (mdoc, man, eqn, tbl, roff) At the end of the document, an explicit
1041 mdoc(7) block, a man(7) next-line scope or MT, RS or UR block, an equa‐
1042 tion, table, or roff(7) conditional or ignore block is still open. The
1043 open block is closed implicitly.
1044 escaped character not allowed in a name
1046 (roff) Macro, string and register identifiers consist of printable, non-
1047 whitespace ASCII characters. Escape sequences and characters and strings
1048 expressed in terms of them cannot form part of a name. The first argu‐
1049 ment of an am, as, de, ds, nr, or rr request, or any argument of an rm
1050 request, or the name of a request or user defined macro being called, is
1051 terminated by an escape sequence. In the cases of as, ds, and nr, the
1052 request has no effect at all. In the cases of am, de, rr, and rm, what
1053 was parsed up to this point is used as the arguments to the request, and
1054 the rest of the input line is discarded including the escape sequence.
1055 When parsing for a request or a user-defined macro name to be called,
1056 only the escape sequence is discarded. The characters preceding it are
1057 used as the request or macro name, the characters following it are used
1058 as the arguments to the request or macro.
1059 using macro argument outside macro
1061 (roff) The escape sequence \$ occurs outside any macro definition and
1062 expands to the empty string.
1063 argument number is not numeric
1065 (roff) The argument of the escape sequence \$ is not a digit; the escape
1066 sequence expands to the empty string.
1067 NOT IMPLEMENTED: Bd -file
1069 (mdoc) For security reasons, the Bd macro does not support the -file
1070 argument. By requesting the inclusion of a sensitive file, a malicious
1071 document might otherwise trick a privileged user into inadvertently dis‐
1072 playing the file on the screen, revealing the file content to bystanders.
1073 The argument is ignored including the file name following it.
1074 skipping display without arguments
1076 (mdoc) A Bd block macro does not have any arguments. The block is dis‐
1077 carded, and the block content is displayed in whatever mode was active
1078 before the block.
1079 missing list type, using -item
1081 (mdoc) A Bl macro fails to specify the list type.
1082 argument is not numeric, using 1
1084 (roff) The argument of a ce request is not a number.
1085 argument is not a character
1087 (roff) The first argument of a char request is neither a single ASCII
1088 character nor a single character escape sequence. The request is ignored
1089 including all its arguments.
1090 missing manual name, using ""
1092 (mdoc) The first call to Nm, or any call in the NAME section, lacks the
1093 required argument.
1094 uname(3) system call failed, using UNKNOWN
1096 (mdoc) The Os macro is called without arguments, and the uname(3) system
1097 call failed. As a workaround, mandoc can be compiled with
1098 -DOSNAME="\"string\"".
1099 unknown standard specifier
1101 (mdoc) An St macro has an unknown argument and is discarded.
1102 skipping request without numeric argument
1104 (roff, eqn) An it request or an eqn(7) size or gsize statement has a non-
1105 numeric or negative argument or no argument at all. The invalid request
1106 or statement is ignored.
1107 excessive shift
1109 (roff) The argument of a shift request is larger than the number of argu‐
1110 ments of the macro that is currently being executed. All macro arguments
1111 are deleted and \n(.$ is set to zero.
1112 NOT IMPLEMENTED: .so with absolute path or ".."
1114 (roff) For security reasons, mandoc allows so file inclusion requests
1115 only with relative paths and only without ascending to any parent direc‐
1116 tory. By requesting the inclusion of a sensitive file, a malicious docu‐
1117 ment might otherwise trick a privileged user into inadvertently display‐
1118 ing the file on the screen, revealing the file content to bystanders.
1119 mandoc only shows the path as it appears behind so.
1120 .so request failed
1122 (roff) Servicing a so request requires reading an external file, but the
1123 file could not be opened. mandoc only shows the path as it appears
1124 behind so.
1125 skipping all arguments
1127 (mdoc, man, eqn, roff) An mdoc(7) Bt, Ed, Ef, Ek, El, Lp, Pp, Re, Rs, or
1128 Ud macro, an It macro in a list that don't support item heads, a man(7)
1129 LP, P, or PP macro, an eqn(7) EQ or EN macro, or a roff(7) br, fi, or nf
1130 request or ‘..’ block closing request is invoked with at least one argu‐
1131 ment. All arguments are ignored.
1132 skipping excess arguments
1134 (mdoc, man, roff) A macro or request is invoked with too many arguments:
1135 - Fo, MT, PD, RS, UR, ft, or sp with more than one argument
1136 - An with another argument after -split or -nosplit
1137 - RE with more than one argument or with a non-integer argument
1138 - OP or a request of the de family with more than two arguments
1139 - Dt with more than three arguments
1140 - TH with more than five arguments
1141 - Bd, Bk, or Bl with invalid arguments
1142 The excess arguments are ignored.
1143 Unsupported features
1145 input too large
1146 (mdoc, man) Currently, mandoc cannot handle input files larger than its
1147 arbitrary size limit of 2^31 bytes (2 Gigabytes). Since useful manuals
1148 are always small, this is not a problem in practice. Parsing is aborted
1149 as soon as the condition is detected.
1150 unsupported control character
1152 (roff) An ASCII control character supported by other roff(7) implementa‐
1153 tions but not by mandoc was found in an input file. It is replaced by a
1154 question mark.
1155 unsupported escape sequence
1157 (roff) An input file contains an escape sequence supported by GNU troff
1158 or Heirloom troff but not by mandoc, and it is likely that this will
1159 cause information loss or considerable misformatting.
1160 unsupported roff request
1162 (roff) An input file contains a roff(7) request supported by GNU troff or
1163 Heirloom troff but not by mandoc, and it is likely that this will cause
1164 information loss or considerable misformatting.
1165 eqn delim option in tbl
1167 (eqn, tbl) The options line of a table defines equation delimiters. Any
1168 equation source code contained in the table will be printed unformatted.
1169 unsupported table layout modifier
1171 (tbl) A table layout specification contains an ‘m’ modifier. The modi‐
1172 fier is discarded.
1173 ignoring macro in table
1175 (tbl, mdoc, man) A table contains an invocation of an mdoc(7) or man(7)
1176 macro or of an undefined macro. The macro is ignored, and its arguments
1177 are handled as if they were a text line.
1178
1180 apropos(1), man(1), eqn(7), man(7), mandoc_char(7), mdoc(7), roff(7),
1181 tbl(7)
1182
1184 The mandoc utility first appeared in OpenBSD 4.8. The option -I appeared
1185 in OpenBSD 5.2, and -aCcfhKklMSsw in OpenBSD 5.7.
1186
1188 The mandoc utility was written by Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@bsd.lv> and
1189 is maintained by Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>.
1190BSD May 10, 2020 BSD