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MANDOC(1) General Commands Manual MANDOC(1)

NAME

mandoc - format manual pages

SYNOPSIS

mandoc [-ac] [-I os=name] [-K encoding] [-mdoc | -man] [-O options] [-T output] [-W level] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION

The mandoc utility formats manual pages for display.

By default, mandoc reads mdoc(7) or man(7) text from stdin and produces -T locale output.

The options are as follows:

If the standard output is a terminal device and -c is not specified, use less(1) to paginate the output, just like man(1) would.
Copy the formatted manual pages to the standard output without using less(1) to paginate them. This is the default. It can be specified to override -a.
Override the default operating system name for the mdoc(7) Os and for the man(7) TH macro.
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 in the following list:

1.
If the first three bytes of the input file are the UTF-8 byte order mark (BOM, 0xefbbbf), input is interpreted as utf-8.
2.
If the first or second line of the input file matches the emacs mode line format

.\" -*- [...;] coding: encoding; -*-

then input is interpreted according to encoding.

3.
If the first non-ASCII byte in the file introduces a valid UTF-8 sequence, input is interpreted as utf-8.
4.
Otherwise, input is interpreted as iso-8859-1.

With -mdoc, all input files are interpreted as mdoc(7). With -man, all input files are interpreted as man(7). By default, the input language is automatically detected for each file: if the first macro is Dd or Dt, the mdoc(7) parser is used; otherwise, the man(7) parser is used. With other arguments, -m is silently ignored.
Comma-separated output options. See the descriptions of the individual output formats for supported options.
Select the output format. Supported values for the output argument are ascii, html, the default of locale, man, markdown, pdf, ps, tree, and utf8.

The special -T lint mode only parses the input and produces no output. It implies -W all and redirects parser messages, which usually appear on standard error output, to standard output.

Specify the minimum message level to be reported on the standard error output and to affect the exit status. The level can be base, style, warning, error, or unsupp. The base level automatically derives the operating system from the contents of the Os macro, from the -Ios command line option, or from the uname(3) return value. The levels openbsd and netbsd are variants of base that bypass autodetection and request validation of base system conventions for a particular operating system. The level all is an alias for base. 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.

Read from the given input file. If multiple files are specified, they are processed in the given order. If unspecified, mandoc reads from standard input.

The options -fhklw are also supported and are documented in man(1). In -f and -k mode, mandoc also supports the options -CMmOSs described in the apropos(1) manual. The options -fkl are mutually exclusive and override each other.

ASCII Output

Use -T ascii to force text output in 7-bit ASCII character encoding documented in the ascii(7) manual page, ignoring the locale(1) set in the environment.

Font styles are applied by using back-spaced encoding such that an underlined character ‘c’ is rendered as ‘_\[bs]c’, where ‘\[bs]’ is the back-space character number 8. Emboldened characters are rendered as ‘c\[bs]c’. This markup is typically converted to appropriate terminal sequences by the pager or ul(1). To remove the markup, pipe the output to col(1) -b instead.

The special characters documented in mandoc_char(7) are rendered best-effort in an ASCII equivalent. In particular, opening and closing ‘single quotes’ are represented as characters number 0x60 and 0x27, respectively, which agrees with all ASCII standards from 1965 to the latest revision (2012) and which matches the traditional way in which roff(7) formatters represent single quotes in ASCII output. This correct ASCII rendering may look strange with modern Unicode-compatible fonts because contrary to ASCII, Unicode uses the code point U+0060 for the grave accent only, never for an opening quote.

The following -O arguments are accepted:

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. When output is to a pager on a terminal that is less than 66 columns wide, the default is reduced to three columns.
Format man(7) input files in mdoc(7) output style. This prints the operating system name rather than the page title on the right side of the footer line, and it implies -O indent=5. One useful application is for checking that -T man output formats in the same way as the mdoc(7) source it was generated from.
If the formatted manual page is opened in a pager, go to the definition of the term rather than showing the manual page from the beginning. If no term is specified, reuse the first command line argument that is not a section number. If that argument is in apropos(1) key=val format, only the val is used rather than the argument as a whole. This is useful for commands like ‘man -akO tag Ic=ulimit’ to search for a keyword and jump right to its definition in the matching manual pages.
The output width is set to width instead of the default of 78. When output is to a pager on a terminal that is less than 79 columns wide, the default is reduced to one less than the terminal width. In any case, lines that are output in literal mode are never wrapped and may exceed the output width.

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 file /usr/share/misc/mandoc.css documents style-sheet classes available for customising 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.

Non-ASCII characters are rendered as hexadecimal Unicode character references.

The following -O arguments are accepted:

Omit the <!DOCTYPE> declaration and the <html>, <head>, and <body> elements and only emit the subtree below the <body> element. The style argument will be ignored. This is useful when embedding manual content within existing documents.
The string fmt, for example, ../src/%I.html, is used as a template 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.
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, section 1 is assumed. The default is not to present a hyperlink. If two formats are given and a file %N.%S exists in the current directory, the first format is used; otherwise, the second format is used.
The file style.css is used for an external style-sheet. This must be a valid absolute or relative URI.
Same syntax and semantics as for ASCII Output. This is implemented by passing a file:// URI ending in a fragment identifier to the pager rather than passing merely a file name. When using this argument, use a pager supporting such URIs, for example 
    
MANPAGER='lynx -force_html' man -T html -O tag=MANPAGER man
MANPAGER='w3m -T text/html' man -T html -O tag=toc mandoc




Consequently, for HTML output, this argument does not work with
    more(1) or less(1). For example, ‘MANPAGER=less man -T html -O
    tag=toc mandoc’ does not work because less(1) does not support
    file:// URIs.





  

  
If an input file contains at least two non-standard sections, print a
      table of contents near the beginning of the output.








Locale Output


By default, mandoc automatically selects UTF-8 or ASCII
    output according to the current locale(1). If any of the environment
    variables LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, or LANG are set and the first one that is set
    selects the UTF-8 character encoding, it produces UTF-8 Output;
    otherwise, it falls back to ASCII Output. This output mode can also
    be selected explicitly with -T locale.






Man Output


Use -T man to translate mdoc(7) input into man(7)
    output format. This is useful for distributing manual sources to legacy
    systems lacking mdoc(7) formatters. Embedded eqn(7) and tbl(7) code is not
    supported.


If the input format of a file is man(7), the input is copied to
    the output. The parser is also run, and as usual, the -W level
    controls which DIAGNOSTICS are displayed before copying the input to
    the output.






Markdown Output


Use -T markdown to translate mdoc(7) input to the
    markdown format conforming to John Gruber's 2004 specification:
    http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax.text. The output
    also almost conforms to the CommonMark: http://commonmark.org/
    specification.


The character set used for the markdown output is ASCII. Non-ASCII
    characters are encoded as HTML entities. Since that is not possible in
    literal font contexts, because these are rendered as code spans and code
    blocks in the markdown output, non-ASCII characters are transliterated to
    ASCII approximations in these contexts.


Markdown is a very weak markup language, so all semantic markup is
    lost, and even part of the presentational markup may be lost. Do not use
    this as an intermediate step in converting to HTML; instead, use -T
    html directly.


The man(7), tbl(7), and eqn(7) input languages are not supported
    by -T markdown output mode.






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:



  

  
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 text output in UTF-8 multi-byte
    character encoding, ignoring the locale(1) settings in the environment. See
    ASCII Output regarding font styles and -O arguments.


On operating systems lacking locale or wide character support, and
    on those where the internal character representation is not UCS-4,
    mandoc always falls back to ASCII Output.






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 content.
      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:



  

  
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



  

  
The character encoding locale(1). When Locale Output is selected,
      it decides whether to use ASCII or UTF-8 output format. It never affects
      the interpretation of input files.

  

  
Any non-empty value of the environment variable MANPAGER is used instead
      of the standard pagination program, less(1); see man(1) for details. Only
      used if -a or -l is specified.

  

  
Specifies the pagination program to use when MANPAGER is not defined. If
      neither PAGER nor MANPAGER is defined, less(1) is used. Only used if
      -a or -l is specified.








EXIT STATUS


The mandoc utility exits with one of the following values,
    controlled by the message level associated with the -W
  option:



  
0

  
No base system convention violations, style suggestions, warnings, or
      errors occurred, or those that did were ignored because they were lower
      than the requested level.

  
1

  
At least one base system convention violation or style suggestion
      occurred, but no warning or error, and -W base or -W
      style was specified.

  
2

  
At least one warning occurred, but no error, and -W warning
      or a lower level was requested.

  
3

  
At least one parsing error occurred, but no unsupported feature was
      encountered, and -W error or a lower level was
      requested.

  
4

  
At least one unsupported feature was encountered, and -W
      unsupp or a lower level was requested.

  
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 may 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 all.






EXAMPLES


To page manuals to the terminal:




$ mandoc -l mandoc.1 man.1 apropos.1 makewhatis.8


To produce HTML manuals with /usr/share/misc/mandoc.css as
    the style-sheet:




$ mandoc -T html -O style=/usr/share/misc/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 arguments (os)


The first three fields identify the file name, line
    number, and column number of the input file where the message was
    triggered. The line and column numbers start at 1. Both are omitted for
    messages referring to an input file as a whole. All level and
    message strings are explained below. The name of the macro
    triggering the message and its arguments are omitted where
    meaningless. The os operating system specifier is omitted for
    messages that are relevant for all operating systems. 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:



  

  
An operating system error occurred. There isn't necessarily anything wrong
      with the input files. Output may all the same be missing or
    incomplete.

  

  
Invalid command line arguments were specified. No input files have been
      read and no output is produced.

  

  
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.

  

  
Indicates a risk of information loss or severe misformatting, in most
      cases caused by serious syntax errors.

  

  
Indicates a risk that the information shown or its formatting may mismatch
      the author's intent in minor ways. Additionally, syntax errors are
      classified at least as warnings, even if they do not usually cause
      misformatting.

  

  
An input file uses dubious or discouraged style. This is not a complaint
      about the syntax, and probably neither formatting nor portability are in
      danger. While great care is taken to avoid false positives on the higher
      message levels, the style level tries to reduce the probability
      that issues go unnoticed, so it may occasionally issue bogus suggestions.
      Please use your good judgement to decide whether any particular
      style suggestion really justifies a change to the input file.

  

  
A convention used in the base system of a specific operating system is not
      adhered to. These are not markup mistakes, and neither the quality of
      formatting nor portability are in danger. Messages of the base
      level are printed with the more intuitive style level
    tag.




Messages of the base, style, warning,
    error, and unsupp levels are hidden unless their level, or a
    lower level, is requested using a -W option or -T lint
    output mode.


As indicated below, all base and some style checks
    are only performed if a specific operating system name occurs in the
    arguments of the -W command line option, of the Os macro, of
    the -Ios command line option, or, if neither are present, in the
    return value of the uname(3) function.




Conventions for base system manuals


Mdocdate found
  

  (mdoc, NetBSD) The Dd macro uses CVS Mdocdate keyword
    substitution, which is not supported by the NetBSD base system. Consider
    using the conventional “Month dd, yyyy” format instead.


Mdocdate missing
  

  (mdoc, OpenBSD) The Dd macro does not use CVS Mdocdate
    keyword substitution, but using it is conventionally expected in the OpenBSD
    base system.


unknown architecture
  

  (mdoc, OpenBSD, NetBSD) The third argument of the Dt
    macro does not match any of the architectures this operating system is
    running on.


operating system explicitly specified
  

  (mdoc, OpenBSD, NetBSD) The Os macro has an argument. In
    the base system, it is conventionally left blank.


RCS id missing
  

  (OpenBSD, NetBSD) The manual page lacks the comment line with the RCS
    identifier generated by CVS OpenBSD or NetBSD keyword
    substitution as conventionally used in these operating systems.






Style suggestions


legacy man(7) date format
  

  (mdoc) The Dd macro uses the legacy man(7) date format
    “yyyy-dd-mm”. Consider using the conventional mdoc(7) date
    format “Month dd, yyyy” instead.


normalizing date format to: ...
  

  (mdoc, man) The Dd or TH macro provides an abbreviated month
    name or a day number with a leading zero. In the formatted output, the month
    name is written out in full and the leading zero is omitted.


lower case character in document title
  

  (mdoc, man) The title is still used as given in the Dt or TH
    macro.


duplicate RCS id
  

  A single manual page contains two copies of the RCS identifier for the same
    operating system. Consider deleting the later instance and moving the first
    one up to the top of the page.


possible typo in section name
  

  (mdoc) Fuzzy string matching revealed that the argument of an Sh macro
    is similar, but not identical to a standard section name.


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.


useless macro
  

  (mdoc) A Bt, Tn, or Ud macro was found. Simply delete it:
    it serves no useful purpose.


consider using OS macro
  

  (mdoc) A string was found in plain text or in a Bx macro that could be
    represented using Ox, Nx, Fx, or Dx.


errnos out of order
  

  (mdoc, NetBSD) The Er items in a Bl list are not in
    alphabetical order.


duplicate errno
  

  (mdoc, NetBSD) A Bl list contains two consecutive It
    entries describing the same Er number.


referenced manual not found
  

  (mdoc) An Xr macro references a manual page that was not found. When
    running with -W base, the search is restricted to the base
    system, by default to /usr/share/man:/usr/X11R6/man. This path
    can be configured at compile time using the MANPATH_BASE preprocessor macro.
    When running with -W style, the search is done along the full
    search path as described in the man(1) manual page, respecting the -m
    and -M command line options, the MANPATH environment variable, the
    man.conf(5) file and falling back to the default of
    /usr/share/man:/usr/X11R6/man:/usr/local/man, also
    configurable at compile time using the MANPATH_DEFAULT preprocessor
  macro.


trailing delimiter
  

  (mdoc) The last argument of an Ex, Fo, Nd, Nm,
    Os, Sh, Ss, St, or Sx macro ends with a
    trailing delimiter. This is usually bad style and often indicates typos.
    Most likely, the delimiter can be removed.


no blank before trailing delimiter
  

  (mdoc) The last argument of a macro that supports trailing delimiter arguments
    is longer than one byte and ends with a trailing delimiter. Consider
    inserting a blank such that the delimiter becomes a separate argument, thus
    moving it out of the scope of the macro.


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.


input text line longer than 80 bytes
  

  Consider breaking the input text line at one of the blank characters before
    column 80.


verbatim "--", maybe consider using \(em
  

  (mdoc) Even though the ASCII output device renders an em-dash as
    "--", that is not a good way to write it in an input file because
    it renders poorly on all other output devices.


function name without markup
  

  (mdoc) A word followed by an empty pair of parentheses occurs on a text line.
    Consider using an Fn or Xr macro.


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.


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
  portable.







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.


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.


filename/section mismatch
  

  (mdoc, man) The name of the input file being processed is known and its file
    name extension starts with a non-zero digit, but the Dt or TH
    macro contains a section argument that starts with a different
    non-zero digit. The section argument is used as provided anyway.
    Consider checking whether the file name or the argument need a
  correction.


missing date, using ""
  

  (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 conventional format.


date in the future, using it anyway
  

  (mdoc, man) The date given in a Dd or TH macro is more than a
    day ahead of the current system time(3).


missing Os macro, using ""
  

  (mdoc) The default or current system is not shown in this case.


late prologue macro
  

  (mdoc) A Dd or Os macro occurs after some non-prologue macro,
    but still takes effect.


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 confuse 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.


description line outside NAME section
  

  (mdoc) An Nd macro appears outside the NAME section. The arguments are
    printed anyway and the following text is used for apropos(1), but none of
    that behaviour is portable.


sections out of conventional order
  

  (mdoc) A standard section occurs after another section it usually precedes.
    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.


cross reference to self
  

  (mdoc) An Xr macro refers to a name and section matching the section of
    the present manual page and a name mentioned in an Nm macro in the
    NAME or SYNOPSIS section, or in an Fn or Fo macro in the
    SYNOPSIS. Consider using Nm or Fn instead of Xr.


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.







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, or the next argument
    after an Ns macro is an isolated closing delimiter. 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 format,
    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.


first macro on line
  

  Inside a Bl -column list, a Ta macro occurs as the first
    macro on a line, which is not portable.


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 previous,
    interrupted macro is deleted from the parse tree.







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
  argument.


conditional request controls empty scope
  

  (roff) A conditional request is only useful if any of the following follows 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 whitespace,
      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,
    MT, 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
    argument. 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 argument, using next line
  

  (mdoc) An It macro in a Bd -column list has no arguments.
    While mandoc uses the text or macros of the following line, if any,
    for the cell, other formatters may misformat the list.


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
    follows 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 implementations 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 MT or 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 nothing to
    the left of it. An empty box is inserted.







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 probably 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
    automatically.


unknown library name
  

  (mdoc, not on OpenBSD) An Lb macro has an unknown name argument
    and will be rendered as "library “name”".


invalid content in Rs block
  

  (mdoc) An Rs block contains plain text or non-% macros. The bogus
    content 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.


argument contains two font escapes
  

  (roff) The second argument of a char request contains more than one
    font escape sequence. A wrong font may remain active after using the
    character.


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
    character 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 formatted like sp requests. To request a paragraph break, use
    Pp instead of a blank line.


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 predict which tab
    stop position the tab will advance to.


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.


invalid escape sequence
  

  (roff) An escape sequence has an invalid opening argument delimiter, lacks the
    closing argument delimiter, the argument is of an invalid form, or it is a
    character escape sequence with an invalid name. 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
    argument. All other invalid escape sequences are ignored.


undefined escape, printing literally
  

  (roff) In an escape sequence, the first character right after the leading
    backslash is invalid. That character is printed literally, which is
    equivalent to ignoring the backslash.


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.







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 discarded.







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.


ignoring excessive spacing in tbl layout
  

  (tbl) A spacing modifier in a table layout is unreasonably large. The default
    spacing of 3n is used instead.


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.







duplicate prologue macro
  

  (mdoc) One of the prologue macros occurs more than once. The last instance
    overrides all previous ones.


skipping late title macro
  

  (mdoc) The Dt macro appears after the first non-prologue macro.
    Traditional 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.


input stack limit exceeded, infinite loop?
  

  (roff) Explicit recursion limits are implemented for the following features,
    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 content, 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 neither
    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 request outside macro
  

  (roff) A shift or return request occurs outside any macro
    definition and has no effect.


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 arguments.


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) ME, RE or UE macro, an eqn(7)
    right delimiter or closing brace, or the end of an equation, table, or
    roff(7) conditional request is encountered but no matching block is open.
    The offending request or macro is discarded.


fewer RS blocks open, skipping
  

  (man) The RE macro is invoked with an argument, but less than the
    specified 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 MT, 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 argument 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.


using macro argument outside macro
  

  (roff) The escape sequence \$ occurs outside any macro definition and expands
    to the empty string.


argument number is not numeric
  

  (roff) The argument of the escape sequence \$ is not a digit; the escape
    sequence expands to the empty string.


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 displaying 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
    discarded, 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.


argument is not numeric, using 1
  

  (roff) The argument of a ce request is not a number.


argument is not a character
  

  (roff) The first argument of a char request is neither a single ASCII
    character nor a single character escape sequence. The request is ignored
    including all its arguments.


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.


excessive shift
  

  (roff) The argument of a shift request is larger than the number of
    arguments of the macro that is currently being executed. All macro arguments
    are deleted and \n(.$ is set to zero.


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
    directory. By requesting the inclusion of a sensitive file, a malicious
    document might otherwise trick a privileged user into inadvertently
    displaying 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
    argument. All arguments are ignored.


skipping excess arguments
  

  (mdoc, man, roff) A macro or request is invoked with too many arguments:





  
-

  
Fo, MT, 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) implementations
    but not by mandoc was found in an input file. It is replaced by a
    question mark.


unsupported escape sequence
  

  (roff) An input file contains an escape sequence supported by GNU troff or
    Heirloom troff but not by mandoc, and it is likely that this will
    cause information loss or considerable misformatting.


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 modifier 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.


skipping tbl in -Tman mode
  

  (mdoc, tbl) An input file contains the TS macro. This message is only
    generated in -T man output mode, where tbl(7) input is not
    supported.


skipping eqn in -Tman mode
  

  (mdoc, eqn) An input file contains the EQ macro. This message is only
    generated in -T man output mode, where eqn(7) input is not
    supported.






Bad command line arguments


bad command line argument
  

  The argument following one of the -IKMmOTW command line options is
    invalid, or a file given as a command line argument cannot be
  opened.


duplicate command line argument
  

  The -I command line option was specified twice.


option has a superfluous value
  

  An argument to the -O option has a value but does not accept one.


missing option value
  

  An argument to the -O option has no argument but requires one.


bad option value
  

  An argument to the -O indent or width option has an
    invalid value.


duplicate option value
  

  The same -O option is specified more than once.


no such tag
  

  The -O tag option was specified but the tag was not found in any
    of the displayed manual pages.


-Tmarkdown unsupported for man(7) input
  

  (man) The -T markdown option was specified but an input file
    uses the man(7) language. No output is produced for that input file.








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>.







  

    August 14, 2021
    Debian