mandoc(1)
- NetBSD Manual Pages
MANDOC(1) NetBSD General Commands Manual MANDOC(1)
NAME
mandoc -- format and display UNIX manuals
SYNOPSIS
mandoc [-acfhkl] [-I os=name] [-K encoding] [-mformat] [-O option]
[-T output] [-W level] [file ...]
DESCRIPTION
The mandoc utility formats UNIX manual pages for display.
By default, mandoc reads mdoc(7) or man(7) text from stdin, implying
-mandoc, and produces -T locale output.
The options are as follows:
-a If the standard output is a terminal device and -c is not speci-
fied, use more(1) to paginate the output, just like man(1) would.
-c Copy the formatted manual pages to the standard output without
using more(1) to paginate them. This is the default. It can be
specified to override -a.
-f A synonym for whatis(1). This overrides any earlier -k and -l
options.
-h Display only the SYNOPSIS lines. Implies -c.
-I os=name
Override the default operating system name for the mdoc(7) `Os'
and for the man(7) `TH' macro.
-K encoding
Specify the input encoding. The supported encoding arguments are
us-ascii, iso-8859-1, and utf-8. If not specified, autodetection
uses the first match:
utf-8 if the first three bytes of the input file are the
UTF-8 byte order mark (BOM, 0xefbbbf)
encoding if the first or second line of the input file matches
the emacs mode line format
.\" -*- [...;] coding: encoding; -*-
utf-8 if the first non-ASCII byte in the file introduces a
valid UTF-8 sequence
iso-8859-1 otherwise
-k A synonym for apropos(1). This overrides any earlier -f and -l
options.
-l A synonym for -a. Also reverts any earlier -f and -k options.
-mformat
Input format. See Input Formats for available formats. Defaults
to -mandoc.
-O option
Comma-separated output options.
-T output
Output format. See Output Formats for available formats.
Defaults to -T locale.
-W level
Specify the minimum message level to be reported on the standard
error output and to affect the exit status. The level can be
warning, error, or unsupp; all is an alias for warning. By
default, mandoc is silent. See EXIT STATUS and DIAGNOSTICS for
details.
The special option -W stop tells mandoc to exit after parsing a
file that causes warnings or errors of at least the requested
level. No formatted output will be produced from that file. If
both a level and stop are requested, they can be joined with a
comma, for example -W error,stop.
file Read input from zero or more files. If unspecified, reads from
stdin. If multiple files are specified, mandoc will halt with
the first failed parse.
In -f and -k mode, mandoc also supports the options -CMmOSsw described in
the apropos(1) manual.
Input Formats
The mandoc utility accepts mdoc(7) and man(7) input with -mdoc and -man,
respectively. The mdoc(7) format is strongly recommended; man(7) should
only be used for legacy manuals.
A third option, -mandoc, which is also the default, determines encoding
on-the-fly: if the first non-comment macro is `Dd' or `Dt', the mdoc(7)
parser is used; otherwise, the man(7) parser is used.
If multiple files are specified with -mandoc, each has its file-type
determined this way. If multiple files are specified and -mdoc or -man
is specified, then this format is used exclusively.
Output Formats
The mandoc utility accepts the following -T arguments, which correspond
to output modes:
-T ascii Produce 7-bit ASCII output. See ASCII Output.
-T html Produce HTML5, CSS1, and MathML output. See HTML Output.
-T lint Parse only: produce no output. Implies -W warning.
-T locale Encode output using the current locale. This is the default.
See Locale Output.
-T man Produce man(7) format output. See Man Output.
-T pdf Produce PDF output. See PDF Output.
-T ps Produce PostScript output. See PostScript Output.
-T tree Produce an indented parse tree. See Syntax tree output.
-T utf8 Encode output in the UTF-8 multi-byte format. See UTF-8
Output.
-T xhtml This is a synonym for -T html.
If multiple input files are specified, these will be processed by the
corresponding filter in-order.
ASCII Output
Output produced by -T ascii is rendered in standard 7-bit ASCII docu-
mented in ascii(7).
Font styles are applied by using back-spaced encoding such that an under-
lined character `c' is rendered as `_\[bs]c', where `\[bs]' is the back-
space character number 8. Emboldened characters are rendered as
`c\[bs]c'.
The special characters documented in mandoc_char(7) are rendered best-
effort in an ASCII equivalent.
Output width is limited to 78 visible columns unless literal input lines
exceed this limit.
The following -O arguments are accepted:
indent=indent
The left margin for normal text is set to indent blank characters
instead of the default of five for mdoc(7) and seven for man(7).
Increasing this is not recommended; it may result in degraded
formatting, for example overfull lines or ugly line breaks.
width=width
The output width is set to width, which will normalise to >=58.
HTML Output
Output produced by -T html conforms to HTML5 using optional self-closing
tags. Default styles use only CSS1. Equations rendered from eqn(7)
blocks use MathML.
The mandoc.css file documents style-sheet classes available for customis-
ing output. If a style-sheet is not specified with -O style, -T html
defaults to simple output (via an embedded style-sheet) readable in any
graphical or text-based web browser.
Special characters are rendered in decimal-encoded UTF-8.
The following -O arguments are accepted:
fragment
Omit the <!DOCTYPE> declaration and the <html>, <head>, and
<body> elements and only emit the subtree below the <body> ele-
ment. The style argument will be ignored. This is useful when
embedding manual content within existing documents.
includes=fmt
The string fmt, for example, ../src/%I.html, is used as a tem-
plate for linked header files (usually via the `In' macro).
Instances of `%I' are replaced with the include filename. The
default is not to present a hyperlink.
man=fmt
The string fmt, for example, ../html%S/%N.%S.html, is used as a
template for linked manuals (usually via the `Xr' macro).
Instances of `%N' and `%S' are replaced with the linked manual's
name and section, respectively. If no section is included, sec-
tion 1 is assumed. The default is not to present a hyperlink.
style=style.css
The file style.css is used for an external style-sheet. This
must be a valid absolute or relative URI.
Locale Output
Locale-depending output encoding is triggered with -T locale. This is
the default.
This option is not available on all systems: systems without locale sup-
port, or those whose internal representation is not natively UCS-4, will
fall back to -T ascii. See ASCII Output for font style specification and
available command-line arguments.
Man Output
Translate input format into man(7) output format. This is useful for
distributing manual sources to legacy systems lacking mdoc(7) formatters.
If mdoc(7) is passed as input, it is translated into man(7). If the
input format is man(7), the input is copied to the output, expanding any
roff(7) `so' requests. The parser is also run, and as usual, the -W
level controls which DIAGNOSTICS are displayed before copying the input
to the output.
PDF Output
PDF-1.1 output may be generated by -T pdf. See PostScript Output for -O
arguments and defaults.
PostScript Output
PostScript "Adobe-3.0" Level-2 pages may be generated by -T ps. Output
pages default to letter sized and are rendered in the Times font family,
11-point. Margins are calculated as 1/9 the page length and width.
Line-height is 1.4m.
Special characters are rendered as in ASCII Output.
The following -O arguments are accepted:
paper=name
The paper size name may be one of a3, a4, a5, legal, or letter.
You may also manually specify dimensions as NNxNN, width by
height in millimetres. If an unknown value is encountered,
letter is used.
UTF-8 Output
Use -T utf8 to force a UTF-8 locale. See Locale Output for details and
options.
Syntax tree output
Use -T tree to show a human readable representation of the syntax tree.
It is useful for debugging the source code of manual pages. The exact
format is subject to change, so don't write parsers for it.
The first paragraph shows meta data found in the mdoc(7) prologue, on the
man(7) TH line, or the fallbacks used.
In the tree dump, each output line shows one syntax tree node. Child
nodes are indented with respect to their parent node. The columns are:
1. For macro nodes, the macro name; for text and tbl(7) nodes, the con-
tent. There is a special format for eqn(7) nodes.
2. Node type (text, elem, block, head, body, body-end, tail, tbl, eqn).
3. Flags:
- An opening parenthesis if the node is an opening delimiter.
- An asterisk if the node starts a new input line.
- The input line number (starting at one).
- A colon.
- The input column number (starting at one).
- A closing parenthesis if the node is a closing delimiter.
- A full stop if the node ends a sentence.
- BROKEN if the node is a block broken by another block.
- NOSRC if the node is not in the input file, but automatically
generated from macros.
- NOPRT if the node is not supposed to generate output for any
output format.
The following -O argument is accepted:
noval Skip validation and show the unvalidated syntax tree. This can
help to find out whether a given behaviour is caused by the
parser or by the validator. Meta data is not available in this
case.
ENVIRONMENT
MANPAGER Any non-empty value of the environment variable MANPAGER will
be used instead of the standard pagination program, more(1).
PAGER Specifies the pagination program to use when MANPAGER is not
defined. If neither PAGER nor MANPAGER is defined, more(1) -s
will be used.
EXIT STATUS
The mandoc utility exits with one of the following values, controlled by
the message level associated with the -W option:
0 No warnings or errors occurred, or those that did were ignored
because they were lower than the requested level.
2 At least one warning occurred, but no error, and -W warning was
specified.
3 At least one parsing error occurred, but no unsupported feature
was encountered, and -W error or -W warning was specified.
4 At least one unsupported feature was encountered, and -W unsupp,
-W error or -W warning was specified.
5 Invalid command line arguments were specified. No input files
have been read.
6 An operating system error occurred, for example exhaustion of
memory, file descriptors, or process table entries. Such errors
cause mandoc to exit at once, possibly in the middle of parsing
or formatting a file.
Note that selecting -T lint output mode implies -W warning.
EXAMPLES
To page manuals to the terminal:
$ mandoc -W all,stop mandoc.1 2>&1 | less
$ mandoc mandoc.1 mdoc.3 mdoc.7 | less
To produce HTML manuals with mandoc.css as the style-sheet:
$ mandoc -T html -O style=mandoc.css mdoc.7 > mdoc.7.html
To check over a large set of manuals:
$ mandoc -T lint `find /usr/src -name \*\.[1-9]`
To produce a series of PostScript manuals for A4 paper:
$ mandoc -T ps -O paper=a4 mdoc.7 man.7 > manuals.ps
Convert a modern mdoc(7) manual to the older man(7) format, for use on
systems lacking an mdoc(7) parser:
$ mandoc -T man foo.mdoc > foo.man
DIAGNOSTICS
Messages displayed by mandoc follow this format:
mandoc: file:line:column: level: message: macro args
Line and column numbers start at 1. Both are omitted for messages refer-
ring to an input file as a whole. Macro names and arguments are omitted
where meaningless. Fatal messages about invalid command line arguments
or operating system errors, for example when memory is exhausted, may
also omit the file and level fields.
Message levels have the following meanings:
unsupp An input file uses unsupported low-level roff(7) features. The
output may be incomplete and/or misformatted, so using GNU troff
instead of mandoc to process the file may be preferable.
error An input file contains invalid syntax that cannot be safely
interpreted. By discarding part of the input or inserting miss-
ing tokens, the parser is able to continue, and the error does
not prevent generation of formatted output, but typically, pre-
paring that output involves information loss, broken document
structure or unintended formatting, no matter whether mandoc or
GNU troff is used. In many cases, the output of mandoc and GNU
troff is identical, but in some, mandoc is more resilient than
GNU troff with respect to malformed input.
Non-existent or unreadable input files are also reported on the
error level. In that case, the parser cannot even be started
and no output is produced from those input files.
warning An input file uses obsolete, discouraged or non-portable syntax.
All the same, the meaning of the input is unambiguous and a cor-
rect rendering can be produced. Documents causing warnings may
render poorly when using other formatting tools instead of
mandoc.
Messages of the warning, error, and unsupp levels except those about non-
existent or unreadable input files are hidden unless their level, or a
lower level, is requested using a -W option or -T lint output mode.
Warnings related to the document prologue
missing manual title, using UNTITLED
(mdoc) A Dt macro has no arguments, or there is no Dt macro before the
first non-prologue macro.
missing manual title, using ""
(man) There is no TH macro, or it has no arguments.
lower case character in document title
(mdoc, man) The title is still used as given in the Dt or TH macro.
missing manual section, using ""
(mdoc, man) A Dt or TH macro lacks the mandatory section argument.
unknown manual section
(mdoc) The section number in a Dt line is invalid, but still used.
missing date, using today's date
(mdoc, man) The document was parsed as mdoc(7) and it has no Dd macro, or
the Dd macro has no arguments or only empty arguments; or the document
was parsed as man(7) and it has no TH macro, or the TH macro has less
than three arguments or its third argument is empty.
cannot parse date, using it verbatim
(mdoc, man) The date given in a Dd or TH macro does not follow the con-
ventional format.
missing Os macro, using ""
(mdoc) The default or current system is not shown in this case.
duplicate prologue macro
(mdoc) One of the prologue macros occurs more than once. The last
instance overrides all previous ones.
late prologue macro
(mdoc) A Dd or Os macro occurs after some non-prologue macro, but still
takes effect.
skipping late title macro
(mdoc) The Dt macro appears after the first non-prologue macro. Tradi-
tional formatters cannot handle this because they write the page header
before parsing the document body. Even though this technical restriction
does not apply to mandoc, traditional semantics is preserved. The late
macro is discarded including its arguments.
prologue macros out of order
(mdoc) The prologue macros are not given in the conventional order Dd,
Dt, Os. All three macros are used even when given in another order.
Warnings regarding document structure
.so is fragile, better use ln(1)
(roff) Including files only works when the parser program runs with the
correct current working directory.
no document body
(mdoc, man) The document body contains neither text nor macros. An empty
document is shown, consisting only of a header and a footer line.
content before first section header
(mdoc, man) Some macros or text precede the first Sh or SH section
header. The offending macros and text are parsed and added to the top
level of the syntax tree, outside any section block.
first section is not NAME
(mdoc) The argument of the first Sh macro is not `NAME'. This may con-
fuse makewhatis(8) and apropos(1).
NAME section without Nm before Nd
(mdoc) The NAME section does not contain any Nm child macro before the
first Nd macro.
NAME section without description
(mdoc) The NAME section lacks the mandatory Nd child macro.
description not at the end of NAME
(mdoc) The NAME section does contain an Nd child macro, but other content
follows it.
bad NAME section content
(mdoc) The NAME section contains plain text or macros other than Nm and
Nd.
missing comma before name
(mdoc) The NAME section contains an Nm macro that is neither the first
one nor preceded by a comma.
missing description line, using ""
(mdoc) The Nd macro lacks the required argument. The title line of the
manual will end after the dash.
sections out of conventional order
(mdoc) A standard section occurs after another section it usually pre-
cedes. All section titles are used as given, and the order of sections
is not changed.
duplicate section title
(mdoc) The same standard section title occurs more than once.
unexpected section
(mdoc) A standard section header occurs in a section of the manual where
it normally isn't useful.
unusual Xr order
(mdoc) In the SEE ALSO section, an Xr macro with a lower section number
follows one with a higher number, or two Xr macros referring to the same
section are out of alphabetical order.
unusual Xr punctuation
(mdoc) In the SEE ALSO section, punctuation between two Xr macros differs
from a single comma, or there is trailing punctuation after the last Xr
macro.
AUTHORS section without An macro
(mdoc) An AUTHORS sections contains no An macros, or only empty ones.
Probably, there are author names lacking markup.
Warnings related to macros and nesting
obsolete macro
(mdoc) See the mdoc(7) manual for replacements.
macro neither callable nor escaped
(mdoc) The name of a macro that is not callable appears on a macro line.
It is printed verbatim. If the intention is to call it, move it to its
own input line; otherwise, escape it by prepending `\&'.
skipping paragraph macro
In mdoc(7) documents, this happens
- at the beginning and end of sections and subsections
- right before non-compact lists and displays
- at the end of items in non-column, non-compact lists
- and for multiple consecutive paragraph macros.
In man(7) documents, it happens
- for empty P, PP, and LP macros
- for IP macros having neither head nor body arguments
- for br or sp right after SH or SS
moving paragraph macro out of list
(mdoc) A list item in a Bl list contains a trailing paragraph macro. The
paragraph macro is moved after the end of the list.
skipping no-space macro
(mdoc) An input line begins with an Ns macro. The macro is ignored.
blocks badly nested
(mdoc) If two blocks intersect, one should completely contain the other.
Otherwise, rendered output is likely to look strange in any output for-
mat, and rendering in SGML-based output formats is likely to be outright
wrong because such languages do not support badly nested blocks at all.
Typical examples of badly nested blocks are "Ao Bo Ac Bc" and "Ao Bq Ac".
In these examples, Ac breaks Bo and Bq, respectively.
nested displays are not portable
(mdoc) A Bd, D1, or Dl display occurs nested inside another Bd display.
This works with mandoc, but fails with most other implementations.
moving content out of list
(mdoc) A Bl list block contains text or macros before the first It macro.
The offending children are moved before the beginning of the list.
fill mode already enabled, skipping
(man) A fi request occurs even though the document is still in fill mode,
or already switched back to fill mode. It has no effect.
fill mode already disabled, skipping
(man) An nf request occurs even though the document already switched to
no-fill mode and did not switch back to fill mode yet. It has no effect.
line scope broken
(man) While parsing the next-line scope of the previous macro, another
macro is found that prematurely terminates the previous one. The previ-
ous, interrupted macro is deleted from the parse tree.
Warnings related to missing arguments
skipping empty request
(roff, eqn) The macro name is missing from a macro definition request, or
an eqn(7) control statement or operation keyword lacks its required argu-
ment.
conditional request controls empty scope
(roff) A conditional request is only useful if any of the following fol-
lows it on the same logical input line:
- The `\{' keyword to open a multi-line scope.
- A request or macro or some text, resulting in a single-line scope.
- The immediate end of the logical line without any intervening white-
space, resulting in next-line scope.
Here, a conditional request is followed by trailing whitespace only, and
there is no other content on its logical input line. Note that it
doesn't matter whether the logical input line is split across multiple
physical input lines using `\' line continuation characters. This is one
of the rare cases where trailing whitespace is syntactically significant.
The conditional request controls a scope containing whitespace only, so
it is unlikely to have a significant effect, except that it may control a
following el clause.
skipping empty macro
(mdoc) The indicated macro has no arguments and hence no effect.
empty block
(mdoc, man) A Bd, Bk, Bl, D1, Dl, RS, or UR block contains nothing in its
body and will produce no output.
empty argument, using 0n
(mdoc) The required width is missing after Bd or Bl -offset or -width.
missing display type, using -ragged
(mdoc) The Bd macro is invoked without the required display type.
list type is not the first argument
(mdoc) In a Bl macro, at least one other argument precedes the type argu-
ment. The mandoc utility copes with any argument order, but some other
mdoc(7) implementations do not.
missing -width in -tag list, using 8n
(mdoc) Every Bl macro having the -tag argument requires -width, too.
missing utility name, using ""
(mdoc) The Ex -std macro is called without an argument before Nm has
first been called with an argument.
missing function name, using ""
(mdoc) The Fo macro is called without an argument. No function name is
printed.
empty head in list item
(mdoc) In a Bl -diag, -hang, -inset, -ohang, or -tag list, an It macro
lacks the required argument. The item head is left empty.
empty list item
(mdoc) In a Bl -bullet, -dash, -enum, or -hyphen list, an It block is
empty. An empty list item is shown.
missing font type, using \fR
(mdoc) A Bf macro has no argument. It switches to the default font.
unknown font type, using \fR
(mdoc) The Bf argument is invalid. The default font is used instead.
nothing follows prefix
(mdoc) A Pf macro has no argument, or only one argument and no macro fol-
lows on the same input line. This defeats its purpose; in particular,
spacing is not suppressed before the text or macros following on the next
input line.
empty reference block
(mdoc) An Rs macro is immediately followed by an Re macro on the next
input line. Such an empty block does not produce any output.
missing section argument
(mdoc) An Xr macro lacks its second, section number argument. The first
argument, i.e. the name, is printed, but without subsequent parentheses.
missing -std argument, adding it
(mdoc) An Ex or Rv macro lacks the required -std argument. The mandoc
utility assumes -std even when it is not specified, but other implementa-
tions may not.
missing option string, using ""
(man) The OP macro is invoked without any argument. An empty pair of
square brackets is shown.
missing resource identifier, using ""
(man) The UR macro is invoked without any argument. An empty pair of
angle brackets is shown.
missing eqn box, using ""
(eqn) A diacritic mark or a binary operator is found, but there is noth-
ing to the left of it. An empty box is inserted.
Warnings related to bad macro arguments
unterminated quoted argument
(roff) Macro arguments can be enclosed in double quote characters such
that space characters and macro names contained in the quoted argument
need not be escaped. The closing quote of the last argument of a macro
can be omitted. However, omitting it is not recommended because it makes
the code harder to read.
duplicate argument
(mdoc) A Bd or Bl macro has more than one -compact, more than one
-offset, or more than one -width argument. All but the last instances of
these arguments are ignored.
skipping duplicate argument
(mdoc) An An macro has more than one -split or -nosplit argument. All
but the first of these arguments are ignored.
skipping duplicate display type
(mdoc) A Bd macro has more than one type argument; the first one is used.
skipping duplicate list type
(mdoc) A Bl macro has more than one type argument; the first one is used.
skipping -width argument
(mdoc) A Bl -column, -diag, -ohang, -inset, or -item list has a -width
argument. That has no effect.
wrong number of cells
In a line of a Bl -column list, the number of tabs or Ta macros is less
than the number expected from the list header line or exceeds the
expected number by more than one. Missing cells remain empty, and all
cells exceeding the number of columns are joined into one single cell.
unknown AT&T UNIX version
(mdoc) An At macro has an invalid argument. It is used verbatim, with
"AT&T UNIX " prefixed to it.
comma in function argument
(mdoc) An argument of an Fa or Fn macro contains a comma; it should prob-
ably be split into two arguments.
parenthesis in function name
(mdoc) The first argument of an Fc or Fn macro contains an opening or
closing parenthesis; that's probably wrong, parentheses are added auto-
matically.
invalid content in Rs block
(mdoc) An Rs block contains plain text or non-% macros. The bogus con-
tent is left in the syntax tree. Formatting may be poor.
invalid Boolean argument
(mdoc) An Sm macro has an argument other than on or off. The invalid
argument is moved out of the macro, which leaves the macro empty, causing
it to toggle the spacing mode.
unknown font, skipping request
(man, tbl) A roff(7) ft request or a tbl(7) f layout modifier has an
unknown font argument.
odd number of characters in request
(roff) A tr request contains an odd number of characters. The last char-
acter is mapped to the blank character.
Warnings related to plain text
blank line in fill mode, using .sp
(mdoc) The meaning of blank input lines is only well-defined in non-fill
mode: In fill mode, line breaks of text input lines are not supposed to
be significant. However, for compatibility with groff, blank lines in
fill mode are replaced with sp requests.
tab in filled text
(mdoc, man) The meaning of tab characters is only well-defined in non-
fill mode: In fill mode, whitespace is not supposed to be significant on
text input lines. As an implementation dependent choice, tab characters
on text lines are passed through to the formatters in any case. Given
that the text before the tab character will be filled, it is hard to pre-
dict which tab stop position the tab will advance to.
whitespace at end of input line
(mdoc, man, roff) Whitespace at the end of input lines is almost never
semantically significant -- but in the odd case where it might be, it is
extremely confusing when reviewing and maintaining documents.
new sentence, new line
(mdoc) A new sentence starts in the middle of a text line. Start it on a
new input line to help formatters produce correct spacing.
bad comment style
(roff) Comment lines start with a dot, a backslash, and a double-quote
character. The mandoc utility treats the line as a comment line even
without the backslash, but leaving out the backslash might not be porta-
ble.
invalid escape sequence
(roff) An escape sequence has an invalid opening argument delimiter,
lacks the closing argument delimiter, or the argument has too few charac-
ters. If the argument is incomplete, \* and \n expand to an empty
string, \B to the digit `0', and \w to the length of the incomplete argu-
ment. All other invalid escape sequences are ignored.
undefined string, using ""
(roff) If a string is used without being defined before, its value is
implicitly set to the empty string. However, defining strings explicitly
before use keeps the code more readable.
Warnings related to tables
tbl line starts with span
(tbl) The first cell in a table layout line is a horizontal span (`s').
Data provided for this cell is ignored, and nothing is printed in the
cell.
tbl column starts with span
(tbl) The first line of a table layout specification requests a vertical
span (`^'). Data provided for this cell is ignored, and nothing is
printed in the cell.
skipping vertical bar in tbl layout
(tbl) A table layout specification contains more than two consecutive
vertical bars. A double bar is printed, all additional bars are dis-
carded.
Errors related to tables
non-alphabetic character in tbl options
(tbl) The table options line contains a character other than a letter,
blank, or comma where the beginning of an option name is expected. The
character is ignored.
skipping unknown tbl option
(tbl) The table options line contains a string of letters that does not
match any known option name. The word is ignored.
missing tbl option argument
(tbl) A table option that requires an argument is not followed by an
opening parenthesis, or the opening parenthesis is immediately followed
by a closing parenthesis. The option is ignored.
wrong tbl option argument size
(tbl) A table option argument contains an invalid number of characters.
Both the option and the argument are ignored.
empty tbl layout
(tbl) A table layout specification is completely empty, specifying zero
lines and zero columns. As a fallback, a single left-justified column is
used.
invalid character in tbl layout
(tbl) A table layout specification contains a character that can neither
be interpreted as a layout key character nor as a layout modifier, or a
modifier precedes the first key. The invalid character is discarded.
unmatched parenthesis in tbl layout
(tbl) A table layout specification contains an opening parenthesis, but
no matching closing parenthesis. The rest of the input line, starting
from the parenthesis, has no effect.
tbl without any data cells
(tbl) A table does not contain any data cells. It will probably produce
no output.
ignoring data in spanned tbl cell
(tbl) A table cell is marked as a horizontal span (`s') or vertical span
(`^') in the table layout, but it contains data. The data is ignored.
ignoring extra tbl data cells
(tbl) A data line contains more cells than the corresponding layout line.
The data in the extra cells is ignored.
data block open at end of tbl
(tbl) A data block is opened with T{, but never closed with a matching
T}. The remaining data lines of the table are all put into one cell, and
any remaining cells stay empty.
Errors related to roff, mdoc, and man code
input stack limit exceeded, infinite loop?
(roff) Explicit recursion limits are implemented for the following fea-
tures, in order to prevent infinite loops:
- expansion of nested escape sequences including expansion of strings
and number registers,
- expansion of nested user-defined macros,
- and so file inclusion.
When a limit is hit, the output is incorrect, typically losing some con-
tent, but the parser can continue.
skipping bad character
(mdoc, man, roff) The input file contains a byte that is not a printable
ascii(7) character. The message mentions the character number. The
offending byte is replaced with a question mark (`?'). Consider editing
the input file to replace the byte with an ASCII transliteration of the
intended character.
skipping unknown macro
(mdoc, man, roff) The first identifier on a request or macro line is nei-
ther recognized as a roff(7) request, nor as a user-defined macro, nor,
respectively, as an mdoc(7) or man(7) macro. It may be mistyped or
unsupported. The request or macro is discarded including its arguments.
skipping insecure request
(roff) An input file attempted to run a shell command or to read or write
an external file. Such attempts are denied for security reasons.
skipping item outside list
(mdoc, eqn) An It macro occurs outside any Bl list, or an eqn(7) above
delimiter occurs outside any pile. It is discarded including its argu-
ments.
skipping column outside column list
(mdoc) A Ta macro occurs outside any Bl -column block. It is discarded
including its arguments.
skipping end of block that is not open
(mdoc, man, eqn, tbl, roff) Various syntax elements can only be used to
explicitly close blocks that have previously been opened. An mdoc(7)
block closing macro, a man(7) RE or UE macro, an eqn(7) right delimiter
or closing brace, or the end of an equation, table, or roff(7) condi-
tional request is encountered but no matching block is open. The offend-
ing request or macro is discarded.
fewer RS blocks open, skipping
(man) The RE macro is invoked with an argument, but less than the speci-
fied number of RS blocks is open. The RE macro is discarded.
inserting missing end of block
(mdoc, tbl) Various mdoc(7) macros as well as tables require explicit
closing by dedicated macros. A block that doesn't support bad nesting
ends before all of its children are properly closed. The open child
nodes are closed implicitly.
appending missing end of block
(mdoc, man, eqn, tbl, roff) At the end of the document, an explicit
mdoc(7) block, a man(7) next-line scope or RS or UR block, an equation,
table, or roff(7) conditional or ignore block is still open. The open
block is closed implicitly.
escaped character not allowed in a name
(roff) Macro, string and register identifiers consist of printable, non-
whitespace ASCII characters. Escape sequences and characters and strings
expressed in terms of them cannot form part of a name. The first argu-
ment of an am, as, de, ds, nr, or rr request, or any argument of an rm
request, or the name of a request or user defined macro being called, is
terminated by an escape sequence. In the cases of as, ds, and nr, the
request has no effect at all. In the cases of am, de, rr, and rm, what
was parsed up to this point is used as the arguments to the request, and
the rest of the input line is discarded including the escape sequence.
When parsing for a request or a user-defined macro name to be called,
only the escape sequence is discarded. The characters preceding it are
used as the request or macro name, the characters following it are used
as the arguments to the request or macro.
NOT IMPLEMENTED: Bd -file
(mdoc) For security reasons, the Bd macro does not support the -file
argument. By requesting the inclusion of a sensitive file, a malicious
document might otherwise trick a privileged user into inadvertently dis-
playing the file on the screen, revealing the file content to bystanders.
The argument is ignored including the file name following it.
skipping display without arguments
(mdoc) A Bd block macro does not have any arguments. The block is dis-
carded, and the block content is displayed in whatever mode was active
before the block.
missing list type, using -item
(mdoc) A Bl macro fails to specify the list type.
missing manual name, using ""
(mdoc) The first call to Nm, or any call in the NAME section, lacks the
required argument.
uname(3) system call failed, using UNKNOWN
(mdoc) The Os macro is called without arguments, and the uname(3) system
call failed. As a workaround, mandoc can be compiled with
-DOSNAME="\"string\"".
unknown standard specifier
(mdoc) An St macro has an unknown argument and is discarded.
skipping request without numeric argument
(roff, eqn) An it request or an eqn(7) size or gsize statement has a non-
numeric or negative argument or no argument at all. The invalid request
or statement is ignored.
NOT IMPLEMENTED: .so with absolute path or ".."
(roff) For security reasons, mandoc allows so file inclusion requests
only with relative paths and only without ascending to any parent direc-
tory. By requesting the inclusion of a sensitive file, a malicious docu-
ment might otherwise trick a privileged user into inadvertently display-
ing the file on the screen, revealing the file content to bystanders.
mandoc only shows the path as it appears behind so.
.so request failed
(roff) Servicing a so request requires reading an external file, but the
file could not be opened. mandoc only shows the path as it appears
behind so.
skipping all arguments
(mdoc, man, eqn, roff) An mdoc(7) Bt, Ed, Ef, Ek, El, Lp, Pp, Re, Rs, or
Ud macro, an It macro in a list that don't support item heads, a man(7)
LP, P, or PP macro, an eqn(7) EQ or EN macro, or a roff(7) br, fi, or nf
request or `..' block closing request is invoked with at least one argu-
ment. All arguments are ignored.
skipping excess arguments
(mdoc, man, roff) A macro or request is invoked with too many arguments:
- Fo, PD, RS, UR, ft, or sp with more than one argument
- An with another argument after -split or -nosplit
- RE with more than one argument or with a non-integer argument
- OP or a request of the de family with more than two arguments
- Dt with more than three arguments
- TH with more than five arguments
- Bd, Bk, or Bl with invalid arguments
The excess arguments are ignored.
Unsupported features
input too large
(mdoc, man) Currently, mandoc cannot handle input files larger than its
arbitrary size limit of 2^31 bytes (2 Gigabytes). Since useful manuals
are always small, this is not a problem in practice. Parsing is aborted
as soon as the condition is detected.
unsupported control character
(roff) An ASCII control character supported by other roff(7) implementa-
tions but not by mandoc was found in an input file. It is replaced by a
question mark.
unsupported roff request
(roff) An input file contains a roff(7) request supported by GNU troff or
Heirloom troff but not by mandoc, and it is likely that this will cause
information loss or considerable misformatting.
eqn delim option in tbl
(eqn, tbl) The options line of a table defines equation delimiters. Any
equation source code contained in the table will be printed unformatted.
unsupported table layout modifier
(tbl) A table layout specification contains an `m' modifier. The modi-
fier is discarded.
ignoring macro in table
(tbl, mdoc, man) A table contains an invocation of an mdoc(7) or man(7)
macro or of an undefined macro. The macro is ignored, and its arguments
are handled as if they were a text line.
SEE ALSO
apropos(1), man(1), eqn(7), man(7), mandoc_char(7), mdoc(7), roff(7),
tbl(7)
HISTORY
The mandoc utility first appeared in OpenBSD 4.8. The option -I appeared
in OpenBSD 5.2, and -aCcfhKklMSsw in OpenBSD 5.7.
AUTHORS
The mandoc utility was written by Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@bsd.lv> and
is maintained by Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>.
NetBSD 8.1 February 10, 2017 NetBSD 8.1
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