MDOC(7) | Miscellaneous Information Manual | MDOC(7) |
mdoc
— semantic
markup language for formatting manual pages
The mdoc
language supports authoring of
manual pages for the man(1) utility by
allowing semantic annotations of words, phrases, page sections and complete
manual pages. Such annotations are used by formatting tools to achieve a
uniform presentation across all manuals written in
mdoc
, and to support hyperlinking if supported by
the output medium.
This reference document describes the structure of manual pages
and the syntax and usage of the mdoc
language. The
reference implementation of a parsing and formatting tool is
mandoc(1); the
COMPATIBILITY section describes
compatibility with other implementations.
In an mdoc
document, lines beginning with
the control character ‘.’ are called “macro
lines”. The first word is the macro name. It consists of two or three
letters. Most macro names begin with a capital letter. For a list of
available macros, see MACRO
OVERVIEW. The words following the macro name are arguments to the macro,
optionally including the names of other, callable macros; see
MACRO SYNTAX for details.
Lines not beginning with the control character are called “text lines”. They provide free-form text to be printed; the formatting of the text depends on the respective processing context:
.Sh Macro lines change control state. Text lines are interpreted within the current state.
Many aspects of the basic syntax of the
mdoc
language are based on the
roff(7) language; see the
LANGUAGE SYNTAX
and MACRO
SYNTAX sections in the roff(7)
manual for details, in particular regarding comments, escape sequences,
whitespace, and quoting. However, using
roff(7) requests in
mdoc
documents is discouraged;
mandoc(1) supports some of them merely
for backward compatibility.
A well-formed mdoc
document consists of a
document prologue followed by one or more sections.
The prologue, which consists of the Dd
,
Dt
, and Os
macros in that
order, is required for every document.
The first section (sections are denoted by
Sh
) must be the NAME section, consisting of at least
one Nm
followed by Nd
.
Following that, convention dictates specifying at least the SYNOPSIS and DESCRIPTION sections, although this varies between manual sections.
The following is a well-formed skeleton
mdoc
file for a utility "progname":
.Dd $Mdocdate$ .Dt PROGNAME section .Os .Sh NAME .Nm progname .Nd one line about what it does .\" .Sh LIBRARY .\" For sections 2, 3, and 9 only. .\" Not used in OpenBSD. .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm progname .Op Fl options .Ar .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm utility processes files ... .\" .Sh CONTEXT .\" For section 9 functions only. .\" .Sh IMPLEMENTATION NOTES .\" Not used in OpenBSD. .\" .Sh RETURN VALUES .\" For sections 2, 3, and 9 function return values only. .\" .Sh ENVIRONMENT .\" For sections 1, 6, 7, and 8 only. .\" .Sh FILES .\" .Sh EXIT STATUS .\" For sections 1, 6, and 8 only. .\" .Sh EXAMPLES .\" .Sh DIAGNOSTICS .\" For sections 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 printf/stderr messages only. .\" .Sh ERRORS .\" For sections 2, 3, 4, and 9 errno settings only. .\" .Sh SEE ALSO .\" .Xr foobar 1 .\" .Sh STANDARDS .\" .Sh HISTORY .\" .Sh AUTHORS .\" .Sh CAVEATS .\" .Sh BUGS .\" .Sh SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS .\" Not used in OpenBSD.
The sections in an mdoc
document are
conventionally ordered as they appear above. Sections should be composed as
follows:
.Nm name0 , .Nm name1 , .Nm name2 .Nd a one line description
Multiple ‘Nm’ names should be separated by commas.
The Nm
macro(s) must precede the
Nd
macro.
See Nm
and
Nd
.
.Lb libarm
See Lb
.
For the first, utilities (sections 1, 6, and 8), this is generally structured as follows:
.Nm bar .Op Fl v .Op Fl o Ar file .Op Ar .Nm foo .Op Fl v .Op Fl o Ar file .Op Ar
Commands should be ordered alphabetically.
For the second, function calls (sections 2, 3, 9):
.In header.h .Vt extern const char *global; .Ft "char *" .Fn foo "const char *src" .Ft "char *" .Fn bar "const char *src"
Ordering of In
,
Vt
, Fn
, and
Fo
macros should follow C header-file
conventions.
And for the third, configurations (section 4):
.Cd "it* at isa? port 0x2e" .Cd "it* at isa? port 0x4e"
Manuals not in these sections generally don't need a SYNOPSIS.
Some macros are displayed differently in the
SYNOPSIS section, particularly
Nm
, Cd
,
Fd
, Fn
,
Fo
, In
,
Vt
, and Ft
. All of these
macros are output on their own line. If two such dissimilar macros are
pairwise invoked (except for Ft
before
Fo
or Fn
), they are
separated by a vertical space, unless in the case of
Fo
, Fn
, and
Ft
, which are always separated by vertical
space.
When text and macros following an Nm
macro starting an input line span multiple output lines, all output
lines but the first will be indented to align with the text immediately
following the Nm
macro, up to the next
Nm
, Sh
, or
Ss
macro or the end of an enclosing block,
whichever comes first.
The .Nm utility does this, that, and the other.
It usually follows with a breakdown of the options (if documenting a command), such as:
The options are as follows: .Bl -tag -width Ds .It Fl v Print verbose information. .El
List the options in alphabetical order, uppercase before lowercase for each letter and with no regard to whether an option takes an argument. Put digits in ascending order before all letter options.
Manuals not documenting a command won't include the above fragment.
Since the DESCRIPTION section usually
contains most of the text of a manual, longer manuals often use the
Ss
macro to form subsections. In very long
manuals, the DESCRIPTION may be split into multiple
sections, each started by an Sh
macro followed
by a non-standard section name, and each having several subsections,
like in the present mdoc
manual.
See Rv
.
See Ev
.
See Pa
.
See Ex
.
Historically, this section was used in place of EXIT STATUS for manuals in sections 1, 6, and 8; however, this practise is discouraged.
See Bl
-diag
.
See Er
.
References to other documentation concerning the topic of the manual page, for example authoritative books or journal articles, may also be provided in this section.
See Rs
and
Xr
.
See St
.
See An
.
This overview is sorted such that macros of similar purpose are listed together, to help find the best macro for any given purpose. Deprecated macros are not included in the overview, but can be found below in the alphabetical MACRO REFERENCE.
Dd |
document date: $Mdocdate$ |
month day, year |
Dt |
document title: TITLE section [arch] |
Os |
operating system version: [system [version]] |
Nm |
document name (one argument) |
Nd |
document description (one line) |
Sh |
section header (one line) |
Ss |
subsection header (one line) |
Sx |
internal cross reference to a section or subsection |
Xr |
cross reference to another manual page: name section |
Tg |
tag the definition of a term (<= 1 arguments) |
Pp |
start a text paragraph (no arguments) |
Bd , Ed |
display block: - type
[-offset width]
[-compact ] |
D1 |
indented display (one line) |
Dl |
indented literal display (one line) |
Ql |
in-line literal display:
‘text ’ |
Bl , El |
list block: - type
[-width val]
[-offset val]
[-compact ] |
It |
list item (syntax depends on
- type) |
Ta |
table cell separator in Bl
-column lists |
Rs , %* ,
Re |
bibliographic block (references) |
Pf |
prefix, no following horizontal space (one argument) |
Ns |
roman font, no preceding horizontal space (no arguments) |
Ap |
apostrophe without surrounding whitespace (no arguments) |
Sm |
switch horizontal spacing mode: [on |
off ] |
Bk , Ek |
keep block: -words |
Nm |
start a SYNOPSIS block with the name of a utility |
Fl |
command line options (flags) (>=0 arguments) |
Cm |
command modifier (>0 arguments) |
Ar |
command arguments (>=0 arguments) |
Op , Oo ,
Oc |
optional syntax elements (enclosure) |
Ic |
internal or interactive command (>0 arguments) |
Ev |
environmental variable (>0 arguments) |
Pa |
file system path (>=0 arguments) |
Lb |
function library (one argument) |
In |
include file (one argument) |
Fd |
other preprocessor directive (>0 arguments) |
Ft |
function type (>0 arguments) |
Fo , Fc |
function block: funcname |
Fn |
function name: funcname [argument ...] |
Fa |
function argument (>0 arguments) |
Vt |
variable type (>0 arguments) |
Va |
variable name (>0 arguments) |
Dv |
defined variable or preprocessor constant (>0 arguments) |
Er |
error constant (>0 arguments) |
Ev |
environmental variable (>0 arguments) |
An |
author name (>0 arguments) |
Lk |
hyperlink: uri [display_name] |
Mt |
“mailto” hyperlink: localpart@domain |
Cd |
kernel configuration declaration (>0 arguments) |
Ad |
memory address (>0 arguments) |
Ms |
mathematical symbol (>0 arguments) |
Em |
italic font or underline (emphasis) (>0 arguments) |
Sy |
boldface font (symbolic) (>0 arguments) |
No |
return to roman font (normal) (>0 arguments) |
Bf , Ef |
font block: - type |
Em | Li |
Sy |
Dq , Do ,
Dc |
enclose in typographic double quotes: “text” |
Qq , Qo ,
Qc |
enclose in typewriter double quotes: "text" |
Sq , So ,
Sc |
enclose in single quotes: ‘text’ |
Pq , Po ,
Pc |
enclose in parentheses: (text) |
Bq , Bo ,
Bc |
enclose in square brackets: [text] |
Brq , Bro ,
Brc |
enclose in curly braces: {text} |
Aq , Ao ,
Ac |
enclose in angle brackets: ⟨text⟩ |
Eo , Ec |
generic enclosure |
Ex -std |
standard command exit values: [utility ...] |
Rv -std |
standard function return values: [function ...] |
St |
reference to a standards document (one argument) |
At |
AT&T UNIX |
Bx |
BSD |
Bsx |
BSD/OS |
Nx |
NetBSD |
Fx |
FreeBSD |
Ox |
OpenBSD |
Dx |
DragonFly |
This section is a canonical reference of all macros, arranged alphabetically. For the scoping of individual macros, see MACRO SYNTAX.
%A
first_name ... last_nameRs
block. Multiple authors
should each be accorded their own %A
line. Author
names should be ordered with full or abbreviated forename(s) first, then
full surname.%B
titleRs
block. This macro may also be
used in a non-bibliographic context when referring to book titles.%C
locationRs
block.%D
[month day,] yearRs
block. Provide the full
English name of the month and all four digits of the
year.%I
nameRs
block.%J
nameRs
block.%N
numberRs
block.%O
lineRs
block.%P
numberRs
block.
Conventionally, the argument starts with
‘p.
’ for a single page or
‘pp.
’ for a range of pages, for
example:
.%P pp. 42\(en47
%Q
nameRs
block. Multiple institutional authors should
each be accorded their own %Q
line.%R
nameRs
block.%T
titleRs
block. This macro may also
be used in a non-bibliographical context when referring to article
titles.%U
protocol://path%V
numberRs
block.Ac
Ao
block. Does not have any tail
arguments.Ad
addressExamples:
.Ad [0,$]
.Ad 0x00000000
An
-split
|
-nosplit
| first_name ... last_nameThe default is -nosplit
. The effect of
selecting either of the -split
modes ends at the
beginning of the AUTHORS section. In the
AUTHORS section, the default is
-nosplit
for the first author listing and
-split
for all other author listings.
Examples:
.An -nosplit
.An Kristaps Dzonsons Aq Mt
kristaps@bsd.lv
Ao
blockAq
for more details.Ap
Examples:
.Fn execve Ap d
Aq
lineMt
for an
example.
Occasionally, it is used for names of characters and keys, for example:
Press the .Aq escape key to ...
For URIs, use Lk
instead, and
In
for “#include” directives.
Never wrap Ar
in Aq
.
Since Aq
usually renders with
non-ASCII characters in non-ASCII output modes, do not use it where the
ASCII characters ‘<’ and ‘>’ are
required as syntax elements. Instead, use these characters directly in
such cases, combining them with the macros Pf
,
Ns
, or Eo
as needed.
See also Ao
.
Ar
[placeholder
...]Examples:
.Fl o Ar file
.Ar
.Ar arg1 , arg2 .
The arguments to the Ar
macro are
names and placeholders for command arguments; for fixed strings to be
passed verbatim as arguments, use Fl
or
Cm
.
At
[version]Note that these arguments do not begin with a hyphen.
Examples:
.At
.At III
.At V.1
See also Bsx
,
Bx
, Dx
,
Fx
, Nx
, and
Ox
.
Bc
Bo
block. Does not have any tail
arguments.Bd
-
type
[-offset
width]
[-compact
]The type must be one of the following:
-centered
mdoc
implementations render it poorly.-filled
-literal
-ragged
-unfilled
-literal
, but using the same font
as for normal text, which is a variable width font if supported by the
output device.The type must be provided first. Additional arguments may follow:
-offset
widthindent
, the
width of a standard indentation (six constant width characters);
indent-two
, twice
indent
; left
,
which has no effect; right
, which
justifies to the right margin; or center
,
which aligns around an imagined center axis.When the argument is missing,
-offset
is ignored.
-compact
Examples:
.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact Hello world. .Ed
See also D1
and
Dl
.
Bf
-emphasis
|
-literal
|
-symbolic
| Em
| Li
|
Sy
-emphasis
and Em
argument
are equivalent, as are -symbolic
and
Sy
, and -literal
and
Li
. Without an argument, this macro does nothing.
The font mode continues until broken by a new font mode in a nested scope
or Ef
is encountered.
See also Li
,
Ef
, Em
, and
Sy
.
Bk
-words
The -words
argument is required;
additional arguments are ignored.
The following example will not break within each
Op
macro line:
.Bk -words .Op Fl f Ar flags .Op Fl o Ar output .Ek
Be careful in using over-long lines within a keep block! Doing so will clobber the right margin.
Bl
-
type
[-width
val]
[-offset
val]
[-compact
] [col ...]It
macro, containing a head or a body or both.
The list type is mandatory and must be
specified first. The -width
and
-offset
arguments accept macro names as
described for Bd
-offset
, scaling widths as described in
roff(7), or use the length of the
given string. The -offset
is a global
indentation for the whole list, affecting both item heads and bodies.
For those list types supporting it, the -width
argument requests an additional indentation of item bodies, to be added
to the -offset
. Unless the
-compact
argument is specified, list entries are
separated by vertical space.
A list must specify one of the following list types:
-bullet
-width
argument.-column
-width
argument has no
effect; instead, the string length of each argument specifies the
width of one column. If the first line of the body of a
-column
list is not an
It
macro line, It
contexts spanning one input line each are implied until an
It
macro line is encountered, at which point
items start being interpreted as described in the
It
documentation.-dash
-bullet
, except that dashes are used in
place of bullets.-diag
-inset
, except that item heads are not
parsed for macro invocations. Most often used in the
DIAGNOSTICS section with error constants in the item
heads.-enum
-bullet
, except that cardinal numbers are used
in place of bullets, starting at 1.-hang
-tag
, except that the first lines of item
bodies are not indented, but follow the item heads like in
-inset
lists.-hyphen
-dash
.-inset
-width
argument is ignored.-item
-width
argument is
ignored.-ohang
-width
argument is ignored.-tag
-width
argument. When an item head fits inside
the indentation, the item body follows this head on the same output
line. Otherwise, the body starts on the output line following the
head.Lists may be nested within lists and displays. Nesting of
-column
and -enum
lists
may not be portable.
See also El
and
It
.
Bo
blockExamples:
.Bo 1 , .Dv BUFSIZ Bc
See also Bq
.
Bq
lineExamples:
.Bq 1, Dv BUFSIZ
Remarks: this macro is sometimes abused to
emulate optional arguments for commands; the correct macros to use for
this purpose are Op
, Oo
,
and Oc
.
See also Bo
.
Brc
Bro
block. Does not have any tail
arguments.Bro
blockExamples:
.Bro 1 , ... , .Va n Brc
See also Brq
.
Brq
lineExamples:
.Brq 1, ..., Va n
See also Bro
.
Bsx
[version]Examples:
.Bsx 1.0
.Bsx
See also At
,
Bx
, Dx
,
Fx
, Nx
, and
Ox
.
Bt
Bx
[version
[variant]]Examples:
.Bx 4.3 Tahoe
.Bx 4.4
.Bx
See also At
,
Bsx
, Dx
,
Fx
, Nx
, and
Ox
.
Cd
lineExamples:
.Cd device le0 at
scode?
Remarks: this macro is commonly abused by
using quoted literals to retain whitespace and align consecutive
Cd
declarations. This practise is
discouraged.
Cm
keyword ...Fl
is more
appropriate.
Examples:
.Nm mt Fl f Ar device Cm
rewind
.Nm ps Fl o Cm pid , Ns Cm
command
.Nm dd Cm if= Ns Ar file1 Cm of=
Ns Ar file2
.Ic set Fl o Cm vi
.Ic lookup Cm file
bind
.Ic permit Ar identity Op Cm as
Ar target
D1
lineExamples:
.D1 Fl abcdefgh
See also Bd
and
Dl
.
Db
Dc
Do
block. Does not have any tail
arguments.Dd
$Mdocdate$
|
month day, yearmdoc
manual.
The month is the full English month name, the day is an integer number, and the year is the full four-digit year.
Other arguments are not portable; the mandoc(1) utility handles them as follows:
Examples:
.Dd $Mdocdate$
.Dd $Mdocdate: July 2
2018$
.Dd July 2, 2018
See also Dt
and
Os
.
Dl
lineExamples:
.Dl % mandoc mdoc.7 \(ba
less
See also Ql
,
Bd
-literal
, and
D1
.
Do
blockExamples:
.Do April is the cruellest month .Dc \(em T.S. Eliot
See also Dq
.
Dq
lineExamples:
.Dq April is the cruellest month \(em T.S. Eliot
See also Qq
,
Sq
, and Do
.
Dt
TITLE section
[arch]mdoc
file.
Its arguments are as follows:
1
(General Commands), 2
(System Calls),
3
(Library Functions),
3p
(Perl Library), 4
(Device Drivers), 5
(File Formats),
6
(Games), 7
(Miscellaneous Information), 8
(System
Manager's Manual), or 9
(Kernel Developer's
Manual). It should correspond to the manual's filename suffix and
defaults to the empty string if unspecified.alpha
,
amd64
, i386
, or
sparc64
. The list of valid architectures
varies by operating system.Examples:
.Dt FOO 1
.Dt FOO 9 i386
See also Dd
and
Os
.
Dv
identifier
...Examples:
.Dv NULL
.Dv BUFSIZ
.Dv STDOUT_FILENO
See also Er
and
Ev
for special-purpose constants,
Va
for variable symbols, and
Fd
for listing preprocessor variable definitions
in the SYNOPSIS.
Dx
[version]Examples:
.Dx 2.4.1
.Dx
See also At
,
Bsx
, Bx
,
Fx
, Nx
, and
Ox
.
Ec
[closing_delimiter]Eo
.
The closing_delimiter argument is used
as the enclosure tail, for example, specifying \(rq will emulate
Dc
.
Ed
Bd
.Ef
Bf
.Ek
Bk
.El
Bl
. See also
It
.Em
word ...This is most often used for stress emphasis (not to be
confused with importance, see Sy
). In the rare
cases where none of the semantic markup macros fit, it can also be used
for technical terms and placeholders, except that for syntax elements,
Sy
and Ar
are preferred,
respectively.
Examples:
Selected lines are those .Em not matching any of the specified patterns. Some of the functions use a .Em hold space to save the pattern space for subsequent retrieval.
See also No
,
Ql
, and Sy
.
En
word ...Eo
or any of the other
enclosure macros.
It encloses its argument in the delimiters specified by the
last Es
macro.
Eo
[opening_delimiter]Do
.Er
identifier
...Examples:
.Er EPERM
.Er ENOENT
See also Dv
for general constants.
Es
opening_delimiter closing_delimiterEo
or any of the other
enclosure macros.
It takes two arguments, defining the delimiters to be used by
subsequent En
macros.
Ev
identifier
...Examples:
.Ev DISPLAY
.Ev PATH
See also Dv
for general constants.
Ex
-std
[utility ...]If utility is not specified, the
document's name set by Nm
is used. Multiple
utility arguments are treated as separate
utilities.
See also Rv
.
Fa
argument ...Fa
macro.
This macro is also used to specify the field name of a structure.
Most often, the Fa
macro is used in
the SYNOPSIS within Fo
blocks
when documenting multi-line function prototypes. If invoked with
multiple arguments, the arguments are separated by a comma. Furthermore,
if the following macro is another Fa
, the last
argument will also have a trailing comma.
Examples:
.Fa "const char
*p"
.Fa "int a" "int
b" "int c"
.Fa "char *"
size_t
See also Fo
.
Fc
Fo
.Fd
#directive
[argument ...]In
.
Examples:
.Fd #define sa_handler
__sigaction_u.__sa_handler
.Fd #define
SIO_MAXNFDS
.Fd #ifdef FS_DEBUG
.Ft void
.Fn dbg_open "const char
*"
.Fd #endif
See also MANUAL
STRUCTURE, In
, and
Dv
.
Fl
[word ...]Examples:
.Nm du Op Fl H | L |
P
.Nm ls Op Fl
1AaCcdFfgHhikLlmnopqRrSsTtux
.Nm route Cm add Fl inet Ar
destination gateway
.Nm locate.updatedb Op Fl
\-fcodes Ns = Ns Ar dbfile
.Nm aucat Fl o Fl
.Nm kill Fl Ar
signal_number
For GNU-sytle long options, escaping the additional hyphen-minus is not strictly required, but may be safer with future versions of GNU troff; see mandoc_char(7) for details.
See also Cm
.
Fn
funcname
[argument ...]Function arguments are surrounded in parenthesis and are delimited by commas. If no arguments are specified, blank parenthesis are output. In the SYNOPSIS section, this macro starts a new output line, and a blank line is automatically inserted between function definitions.
Examples:
.Fn "int funcname"
"int arg0" "int arg1"
.Fn funcname "int
arg0"
.Fn funcname arg0
.Ft functype .Fn funcname
When referring to a function documented in another manual
page, use Xr
instead. See also
MANUAL STRUCTURE,
Fo
, and Ft
.
Fo
funcnameFn
.
Invocations usually occur in the following context:
Ft
functype
Fo
funcname
Fa
"argtype
argname"
Fc
A Fo
scope is closed by
Fc
.
See also MANUAL
STRUCTURE, Fa
, Fc
,
and Ft
.
Fr
numberIt was used to show numerical function return values in an italic font.
Ft
functypeIn the SYNOPSIS section, a new output line is started after this macro.
Examples:
.Ft int
.Ft functype .Fn funcname
See also MANUAL
STRUCTURE, Fn
, and
Fo
.
Fx
[version]Examples:
.Fx 7.1
.Fx
See also At
,
Bsx
, Bx
,
Dx
, Nx
, and
Ox
.
Hf
filenameIc
keyword ...Cm
.
Examples:
.Ic :wq
.Ic hash
.Ic alias
Note that using Ql
,
Dl
, or Bd
-literal
is preferred for displaying code
samples; the Ic
macro is used when referring to
an individual command name.
In
filenameWhen invoked as the first macro on an input line in the SYNOPSIS section, the argument is displayed in angle brackets and preceded by "#include", and a blank line is inserted in front if there is a preceding function declaration. In other sections, it only encloses its argument in angle brackets and causes no line break.
Examples:
.In sys/types.h
See also MANUAL STRUCTURE.
It
[head]Lists of type -hang
,
-ohang
, -inset
, and
-diag
have the following syntax:
It
argsLists of type -bullet
,
-dash
, -enum
,
-hyphen
and -item
have
the following syntax:
It
with subsequent lines interpreted within the scope of the
It
until either a closing
El
or another It
.
The -tag
list has the following
syntax:
It
[args
]Subsequent lines are interpreted as with
-bullet
and family. The line arguments
correspond to the list's left-hand side; body arguments correspond to
the list's contents.
The -column
list is the most
complicated. Its syntax is as follows:
It
cell [Ta
cell ...]It
cell [<TAB> cell
...]The arguments consist of one or more lines of text and macros
representing a complete table line. Cells within the line are delimited
by the special Ta
block macro or by literal tab
characters.
Using literal tabs is strongly discouraged because they are
very hard to use correctly and mdoc
code using
them is very hard to read. In particular, a blank character is
syntactically significant before and after the literal tab character. If
a word precedes or follows the tab without an intervening blank, that
word is never interpreted as a macro call, but always output
literally.
The tab cell delimiter may only be used within the
It
line itself; on following lines, only the
Ta
macro can be used to delimit cells, and
portability requires that Ta
is called by other
macros: some parsers do not recognize it when it appears as the first
macro on a line.
Note that quoted strings may span tab-delimited cells on an
It
line. For example,
.It "col1 , <TAB> col2
," ;
will preserve the whitespace before both commas, but not the whitespace before the semicolon.
See also Bl
.
Lb
lib
nameThe name parameter may be a system
library, such as z
or
pam
, in which case a small library description
is printed next to the linker invocation; or a custom library, in which
case the library name is printed in quotes. This is most commonly used
in the SYNOPSIS section as described in
MANUAL STRUCTURE.
Examples:
.Lb libz
.Lb libmandoc
Li
word ...Ql
(in-line),
Dl
(single line), or Bd
-literal
(multi-line) instead.Lk
uri
[display_name]Examples:
.Lk https://bsd.lv "The
BSD.lv Project"
.Lk https://bsd.lv
See also Mt
.
Lp
Pp
.Ms
nameExamples:
.Ms sigma
.Ms aleph
Mt
localpart@domainExamples:
.Mt
discuss@manpages.bsd.lv
.An Kristaps Dzonsons Aq Mt
kristaps@bsd.lv
Nd
lineExamples:
.Nd mdoc
language reference
.Nd format and
display UNIX manuals
The Nd
macro technically accepts child
macros and terminates with a subsequent Sh
invocation. Do not assume this behaviour: some
whatis(1) database generators are
not smart enough to parse more than the line arguments and will display
macros verbatim.
See also Nm
.
Nm
[name]Nm
macro
expects a single argument, the name of the manual page. Usually, the first
invocation happens in the NAME section of the page. The
specified name will be remembered and used whenever the macro is called
again without arguments later in the page. The Nm
macro uses Block
full-implicit semantics when invoked as the first macro on an input
line in the SYNOPSIS section; otherwise, it uses
ordinary In-line semantics.
Examples:
.Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm cat .Op Fl benstuv .Op Ar
In the SYNOPSIS of section 2, 3 and 9 manual
pages, use the Fn
macro rather than
Nm
to mark up the name of the manual page.
No
word ...Em
or
Sy
, switches back to the standard font face and
weight. Can also be used to embed plain text strings in macro lines using
semantic annotation macros.
Examples:
.Em italic , Sy bold , No and
roman
.Sm off .Cm :C No / Ar pattern No / Ar replacement No / .Sm on
See also Em
,
Ql
, and Sy
.
Ns
No
macro.
This has no effect when invoked at the start of a macro line.
Examples:
.Ar name Ns = Ns Ar
value
.Cm :M Ns Ar pattern
.Fl o Ns Ar output
See also No
and
Sm
.
Nx
[version]Examples:
.Nx 5.01
.Nx
See also At
,
Bsx
, Bx
,
Dx
, Fx
, and
Ox
.
Oc
Oo
context.Oo
blockOp
.
Examples:
.Oo .Op Fl flag Ns Ar value .Oc
Op
lineExamples:
.Op Fl a Ar b
.Op Ar a | b
See also Oo
.
Os
[system
[version]]mdoc
file.
The optional system parameter specifies
the relevant operating system or environment. It is suggested to leave
it unspecified, in which case
mandoc(1) uses its
-Ios
argument or, if that isn't specified
either, sysname and release
as returned by uname(3).
Examples:
.Os
.Os KTH/CSC/TCS
.Os BSD 4.3
See also Dd
and
Dt
.
Ot
functypeFt
instead; with
mandoc(1), both have the same effect.
Historical mdoc
packages described it
as “old function type (FORTRAN)”.
Ox
[version]Examples:
.Ox 4.5
.Ox
See also At
,
Bsx
, Bx
,
Dx
, Fx
, and
Nx
.
Pa
name ...Examples:
.Pa /usr/bin/mandoc
.Pa
/usr/share/man/man7/mdoc.7
See also Lk
.
Pc
Po
.Pf
prefix macro
[argument ...]No
\&prefix Ns
macro [argument ...]The prefix argument is not parsed for macro names or delimiters, but used verbatim as if it were escaped.
Examples:
.Pf $ Ar
variable_name
.Pf . Ar macro_name
.Pf 0x Ar hex_digits
See also Ns
and
Sm
.
Po
blockPq
.Pp
Paragraph breaks are not needed before or after
Sh
or Ss
macros or
before displays (Bd
line)
or lists (Bl
) unless the
-compact
flag is given.
Pq
lineSee also Po
.
Qc
Qo
.Ql
lineSee also Dl
and
Bd
-literal
.
Qo
blockQq
.Qq
lineDq
.
See also Dq
,
Sq
, and Qo
.
Re
Rs
block. Does not have any tail
arguments.Rs
%A
, %B
,
%C
, %D
,
%I
, %J
,
%N
, %O
,
%P
, %Q
,
%R
, %T
,
%U
, and %V
child macros
(at least one must be specified).
Examples:
.Rs .%A J. E. Hopcroft .%A J. D. Ullman .%B Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation .%I Addison-Wesley .%C Reading, Massachusetts .%D 1979 .Re
If an Rs
block is used within a SEE
ALSO section, a vertical space is asserted before the rendered output,
else the block continues on the current line.
Rv
-std
[function ...]If function is not specified, the
document's name set by Nm
is used. Multiple
function arguments are treated as separate
functions.
See also Ex
.
Sc
So
.Sh
TITLE LINESection names should be unique so that they may be keyed by
Sx
. Although this macro is parsed, it should not
consist of child node or it may not be linked with
Sx
.
See also Pp
,
Ss
, and Sx
.
Sm
[on
|
off
]By default, spacing is on
. When
switched off
, no white space is inserted between
macro arguments and between the output generated from adjacent macros,
but text lines still get normal spacing between words and sentences.
When called without an argument, the
Sm
macro toggles the spacing mode. Using this is
not recommended because it makes the code harder to read.
So
blockSq
.Sq
lineSee also Dq
,
Qq
, and So
.
Ss
Title lineSh
, there is
no convention for the naming of subsections. Except
DESCRIPTION, the conventional sections described in
MANUAL STRUCTURE rarely have
subsections.
Sub-section names should be unique so that they may be keyed
by Sx
. Although this macro is parsed, it should
not consist of child node or it may not be linked with
Sx
.
See also Pp
,
Sh
, and Sx
.
St
-
abbreviationSx
Title lineExamples:
.Sx MANUAL STRUCTURE
See also Sh
and
Ss
.
Sy
word ...This is most often used to indicate importance or seriousness
(not to be confused with stress emphasis, see
Em
). When none of the semantic macros fit, it is
also adequate for syntax elements that have to be given or that appear
verbatim.
Examples:
.Sy Warning : If .Sy s appears in the owner permissions, set-user-ID mode is set. This utility replaces the former .Sy dumpdir program.
See also Em
,
No
, and Ql
.
Ta
Bl
-column
lists; can only be used below
It
.Tg
[term]When viewing terminal output with
less(1), the interactive
:t
command can be used to go to the definition
of the term as described for the
MANPAGER
variable in
man(1); when producing HTML output, a
fragment identifier (id
attribute) is generated, to be used for deep
linking to this place of the document.
In most cases, adding a Tg
macro would
be redundant because mandoc(1) is
able to automatically tag most definitions. This macro is intended for
cases where automatic tagging of a term is
unsatisfactory, for example if a definition is not tagged automatically
(false negative) or if places are tagged that do not define the
term (false positives). When there is at least one
Tg
macro for a term, no
other places are automatically marked as definitions of that
term.
Tn
word ...Ud
Ux
Va
[type]
identifier ...Examples:
.Va foo
.Va const char *bar
For function arguments and parameters, use
Fa
instead. For declarations of global variables
in the SYNOPSIS section, use
Vt
.
Vt
type
[identifier]This is also used for indicating global variables in the SYNOPSIS section, in which case a variable name is also specified. Note that it accepts Block partial-implicit syntax when invoked as the first macro on an input line in the SYNOPSIS section, else it accepts ordinary In-line syntax. In the former case, this macro starts a new output line, and a blank line is inserted in front if there is a preceding function definition or include directive.
Examples:
.Vt unsigned char
.Vt extern const char * const
sys_signame[] ;
For parameters in function prototypes, use
Fa
instead, for function return types
Ft
, and for variable names outside the
SYNOPSIS section Va
, even when
including a type with the name. See also
MANUAL STRUCTURE.
Xc
Xo
.Xo
blockIt
macro or the body of a
partial-implicit block macro beyond the end of the input line. This macro
originally existed to work around the 9-argument limit of historic
roff(7).Xr
name sectionCross reference the name and section number of another man page.
Examples:
.Xr mandoc 1
.Xr mandoc 1 ;
.Xr mandoc 1 Ns s
behaviour
The syntax of a macro depends on its classification. In this section, ‘-arg’ refers to macro arguments, which may be followed by zero or more ‘parm’ parameters; ‘Yo’ opens the scope of a macro; and if specified, ‘Yc’ closes it out.
The Callable column indicates that the macro may
also be called by passing its name as an argument to another macro. For
example, ‘.Op Fl O Ar file’ produces
‘[-O
file]’. To
prevent a macro call and render the macro name literally, escape it by
prepending a zero-width space, ‘\&’. For example,
‘Op \&Fl O’ produces ‘[Fl O]’. If a macro is
not callable but its name appears as an argument to another macro, it is
interpreted as opaque text. For example, ‘.Fl Sh’ produces
‘-Sh
’.
The Parsed column indicates whether the macro may call other macros by receiving their names as arguments. If a macro is not parsed but the name of another macro appears as an argument, it is interpreted as opaque text.
The Scope column, if applicable, describes closure rules.
Multi-line scope closed by an explicit closing macro. All macros
contains bodies; only Bf
and (optionally)
Bl
contain a head.
.Yo [-arg [parm...]] [head...] [body...] .Yc
Macro | Callable | Parsed | Scope |
Bd |
No | No | closed by Ed |
Bf |
No | No | closed by Ef |
Bk |
No | No | closed by Ek |
Bl |
No | No | closed by El |
Ed |
No | No | opened by Bd |
Ef |
No | No | opened by Bf |
Ek |
No | No | opened by Bk |
El |
No | No | opened by Bl |
Multi-line scope closed by end-of-file or implicitly by another
macro. All macros have bodies; some (It
-bullet
, -hyphen
,
-dash
, -enum
,
-item
) don't have heads; only one
(It
in Bl
-column
) has multiple heads.
.Yo [-arg [parm...]] [head... [Ta head...]] [body...]
Macro | Callable | Parsed | Scope |
It |
No | Yes | closed by It , El |
Nd |
No | No | closed by Sh |
Nm |
No | Yes | closed by Nm , Sh ,
Ss |
Sh |
No | Yes | closed by Sh |
Ss |
No | Yes | closed by Sh , Ss |
Note that the Nm
macro is a
Block full-implicit macro only
when invoked as the first macro in a SYNOPSIS section
line, else it is In-line.
Like block full-explicit, but also with single-line scope. Each
has at least a body and, in limited circumstances, a head
(Fo
, Eo
) and/or tail
(Ec
).
.Yo [-arg [parm...]] [head...] [body...] .Yc [tail...] .Yo [-arg [parm...]] [head...] [body...] Yc [tail...]
Macro | Callable | Parsed | Scope |
Ac |
Yes | Yes | opened by Ao |
Ao |
Yes | Yes | closed by Ac |
Bc |
Yes | Yes | closed by Bo |
Bo |
Yes | Yes | opened by Bc |
Brc |
Yes | Yes | opened by Bro |
Bro |
Yes | Yes | closed by Brc |
Dc |
Yes | Yes | opened by Do |
Do |
Yes | Yes | closed by Dc |
Ec |
Yes | Yes | opened by Eo |
Eo |
Yes | Yes | closed by Ec |
Fc |
Yes | Yes | opened by Fo |
Fo |
No | No | closed by Fc |
Oc |
Yes | Yes | closed by Oo |
Oo |
Yes | Yes | opened by Oc |
Pc |
Yes | Yes | closed by Po |
Po |
Yes | Yes | opened by Pc |
Qc |
Yes | Yes | opened by Oo |
Qo |
Yes | Yes | closed by Oc |
Re |
No | No | opened by Rs |
Rs |
No | No | closed by Re |
Sc |
Yes | Yes | opened by So |
So |
Yes | Yes | closed by Sc |
Xc |
Yes | Yes | opened by Xo |
Xo |
Yes | Yes | closed by Xc |
Like block full-implicit, but with single-line scope closed by the end of the line.
.Yo [-arg [val...]] [body...] [res...]
Macro | Callable | Parsed |
Aq |
Yes | Yes |
Bq |
Yes | Yes |
Brq |
Yes | Yes |
D1 |
No | Yes |
Dl |
No | Yes |
Dq |
Yes | Yes |
En |
Yes | Yes |
Op |
Yes | Yes |
Pq |
Yes | Yes |
Ql |
Yes | Yes |
Qq |
Yes | Yes |
Sq |
Yes | Yes |
Vt |
Yes | Yes |
Note that the Vt
macro is a
Block partial-implicit only
when invoked as the first macro in a SYNOPSIS section
line, else it is In-line.
The Ta
macro can only be used below
It
in Bl
-column
lists. It delimits blocks representing table
cells; these blocks have bodies, but no heads.
Macro | Callable | Parsed | Scope |
Ta |
Yes | Yes | closed by Ta , It |
Closed by the end of the line, fixed argument lengths, and/or subsequent macros. In-line macros have only text children. If a number (or inequality) of arguments is (n), then the macro accepts an arbitrary number of arguments.
.Yo [-arg [val...]] [args...] [res...] .Yo [-arg [val...]] [args...] Yc... .Yo [-arg [val...]] arg0 arg1 argN
Macro | Callable | Parsed | Arguments |
%A |
No | No | >0 |
%B |
No | No | >0 |
%C |
No | No | >0 |
%D |
No | No | >0 |
%I |
No | No | >0 |
%J |
No | No | >0 |
%N |
No | No | >0 |
%O |
No | No | >0 |
%P |
No | No | >0 |
%Q |
No | No | >0 |
%R |
No | No | >0 |
%T |
No | No | >0 |
%U |
No | No | >0 |
%V |
No | No | >0 |
Ad |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
An |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Ap |
Yes | Yes | 0 |
Ar |
Yes | Yes | n |
At |
Yes | Yes | 1 |
Bsx |
Yes | Yes | n |
Bt |
No | No | 0 |
Bx |
Yes | Yes | n |
Cd |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Cm |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Db |
No | No | 1 |
Dd |
No | No | n |
Dt |
No | No | n |
Dv |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Dx |
Yes | Yes | n |
Em |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Er |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Es |
Yes | Yes | 2 |
Ev |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Ex |
No | No | n |
Fa |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Fd |
No | No | >0 |
Fl |
Yes | Yes | n |
Fn |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Fr |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Ft |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Fx |
Yes | Yes | n |
Hf |
No | No | n |
Ic |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
In |
No | No | 1 |
Lb |
No | No | 1 |
Li |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Lk |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Lp |
No | No | 0 |
Ms |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Mt |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Nm |
Yes | Yes | n |
No |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Ns |
Yes | Yes | 0 |
Nx |
Yes | Yes | n |
Os |
No | No | n |
Ot |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Ox |
Yes | Yes | n |
Pa |
Yes | Yes | n |
Pf |
Yes | Yes | 1 |
Pp |
No | No | 0 |
Rv |
No | No | n |
Sm |
No | No | <2 |
St |
No | Yes | 1 |
Sx |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Sy |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Tg |
No | No | <2 |
Tn |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Ud |
No | No | 0 |
Ux |
Yes | Yes | n |
Va |
Yes | Yes | n |
Vt |
Yes | Yes | >0 |
Xr |
Yes | Yes | 2 |
When a macro argument consists of one single input character considered as a delimiter, the argument gets special handling. This does not apply when delimiters appear in arguments containing more than one character. Consequently, to prevent special handling and just handle it like any other argument, a delimiter can be escaped by prepending a zero-width space (‘\&’). In text lines, delimiters never need escaping, but may be used as normal punctuation.
For many macros, when the leading arguments are opening delimiters, these delimiters are put before the macro scope, and when the trailing arguments are closing delimiters, these delimiters are put after the macro scope. Spacing is suppressed after opening delimiters and before closing delimiters. For example,
renders as:
Opening delimiters are:
Closing delimiters are:
Note that even a period preceded by a backslash (‘\.’) gets this special handling; use ‘\&.’ to prevent that.
Many in-line macros interrupt their scope when they encounter delimiters, and resume their scope when more arguments follow that are not delimiters. For example,
renders as:
-a
(-b
| -c
| -d
)
-e
This applies to both opening and closing delimiters, and also to the middle delimiter, which does not suppress spacing:
As a special case, the predefined string \*(Ba is handled and rendered in the same way as a plain ‘|’ character. Using this predefined string is not recommended in new manuals.
Appending a zero-width space (‘\&’) to the end of an input line is also useful to prevent the interpretation of a trailing period, exclamation or question mark as the end of a sentence, for example when an abbreviation happens to occur at the end of a text or macro input line.
In mdoc
documents, usage of semantic
markup is recommended in order to have proper fonts automatically selected;
only when no fitting semantic markup is available, consider falling back to
Physical markup macros. Whenever
any mdoc
macro switches the
roff(7) font mode, it will automatically
restore the previous font when exiting its scope. Manually switching the
font using the roff(7)
‘\f
’ font escape sequences is never
required.
This section provides an incomplete list of compatibility issues between mandoc and GNU troff ("groff").
The following problematic behaviour is found in groff:
Pa
does not format its arguments when used in the
FILES section under certain list types.Ta
can only be called by other macros, but not at
the beginning of a line.The following features are unimplemented in mandoc:
Bd
-file
file is unsupported for security reasons.Bd
-filled
does not adjust
the right margin, but is an alias for Bd
-ragged
.Bd
-literal
does not use a
literal font, but is an alias for Bd
-unfilled
.Bd
-offset
center
and -offset
right
don't work. Groff does not implement
centered and flush-right rendering either, but produces large
indentations.man(1), mandoc(1), eqn(7), man(7), mandoc_char(7), roff(7), tbl(7)
The web page extended documentation for the mdoc language provides a few tutorial-style pages for beginners, an extensive style guide for advanced authors, and an alphabetic index helping to choose the best macros for various kinds of content.
The manual page groff_mdoc(7) contained in the “groff” package documents exactly the same language in a somewhat different style.
The mdoc
language first appeared as a
troff macro package in 4.4BSD. It was later
significantly updated by Werner Lemberg and Ruslan Ermilov in groff-1.17.
The standalone implementation that is part of the
mandoc(1) utility written by Kristaps
Dzonsons appeared in OpenBSD 4.6.
The mdoc
reference was written by
Kristaps Dzonsons
<kristaps@bsd.lv>.
July 29, 2021 | macOS 14.6 |