Comments¶

Text following an escaped double-quote ‘\"’, whether in a request, macro, or text line, is ignored to the end of the line. A request line beginning with a control character and comment escape ‘.\"’ is also ignored. Furthermore, request lines with only a control character and optional trailing whitespace are stripped from input.

Examples:

.\" This is a comment line.
.\" The next line is ignored:
.
.Sh EXAMPLES \" This is a comment, too.
example text \" And so is this.

Special Characters¶

Special characters are used to encode special glyphs and are rendered differently across output media. They may occur in request, macro, and text lines. Sequences begin with the escape character ‘\’ followed by either an open-parenthesis ‘(’ for two-character sequences; an open-bracket ‘[’ for n-character sequences (terminated at a close-bracket ‘]’); or a single one character sequence.

Examples:

See mandoc_char(7) for a complete list.

Text Decoration¶

Terms may be text-decorated using the ‘\f’ escape followed by an indicator: B (bold), I (italic), R (regular), or P (revert to previous mode). A numerical representation 3, 2, or 1 (bold, italic, and regular, respectively) may be used instead. The indicator or numerical representative may be preceded by C (constant-width), which is ignored.

The two-character indicator ‘BI’ requests a font that is both bold and italic. It may not be portable to old roff implementations.

Examples:

Text decoration is not recommended for mdoc(7), which encourages semantic annotation.

Predefined Strings¶

Predefined strings, like Special Characters, mark special output glyphs. Predefined strings are escaped with the slash-asterisk, ‘\*’: single-character ‘\*X’, two-character ‘\*(XX’, and N-character ‘\*[N]’.

Examples:

Predefined strings are not recommended for use, as they differ across implementations. Those supported by mandoc(1) are listed in mandoc_char(7). Manuals using these predefined strings are almost certainly not portable.

Whitespace¶

Whitespace consists of the space character. In text lines, whitespace is preserved within a line. In request and macro lines, whitespace delimits arguments and is discarded.

Unescaped trailing spaces are stripped from text line input unless in a literal context. In general, trailing whitespace on any input line is discouraged for reasons of portability. In the rare case that a blank character is needed at the end of an input line, it may be forced by ‘\ \&’.

Literal space characters can be produced in the output using escape sequences. In macro lines, they can also be included in arguments using quotation; see MACRO SYNTAX for details.

Blank text lines, which may include whitespace, are only permitted within literal contexts. If the first character of a text line is a space, that line is printed with a leading newline.

Scaling Widths¶

Many requests and macros support scaled widths for their arguments. The syntax for a scaled width is ‘[+-]?[0-9]*.[0-9]*[:unit:]’, where a decimal must be preceded or followed by at least one digit. Negative numbers, while accepted, are truncated to zero.

The following scaling units are accepted:

Using anything other than ‘m’, ‘n’, or ‘v’ is necessarily non-portable across output media. See COMPATIBILITY.

If a scaling unit is not provided, the numerical value is interpreted under the default rules of ‘v’ for vertical spaces and ‘u’ for horizontal ones.

Examples:

Sentence Spacing¶

Each sentence should terminate at the end of an input line. By doing this, a formatter will be able to apply the proper amount of spacing after the end of sentence (unescaped) period, exclamation mark, or question mark followed by zero or more non-sentence closing delimiters (‘)’, ‘]’, ‘'’, ‘"’) .

The proper spacing is also intelligently preserved if a sentence ends at the boundary of a macro line.

Examples:

Do not end sentences mid-line like this.  Instead,
end a sentence like this.
A macro would end like this:
.Xr mandoc 1 .

ab¶

Abort processing. Currently unsupported.

ad¶

Set line adjustment mode. It takes one argument to select normal, left, right, or center adjustment for subsequent text. Currently ignored.

af¶

Assign an output format to a number register. Currently ignored.

aln¶

Create an alias for a number register. Currently unsupported.

als¶

Create an alias for a request, string, macro, or diversion. Currently unsupported.

am¶

Append to a macro definition. The syntax of this request is the same as that of de.

am1¶

Append to a macro definition, switching roff compatibility mode off during macro execution (groff extension). The syntax of this request is the same as that of de1. Since mandoc(1) does not implement roff compatibility mode at all, it handles this request as an alias for am.

ami¶

Append to a macro definition, specifying the macro name indirectly (groff extension). The syntax of this request is the same as that of dei.

ami1¶

Append to a macro definition, specifying the macro name indirectly and switching roff compatibility mode off during macro execution (groff extension). The syntax of this request is the same as that of dei1. Since mandoc(1) does not implement roff compatibility mode at all, it handles this request as an alias for ami.

as¶

Append to a user-defined string. The syntax of this request is the same as that of ds. If a user-defined string with the specified name does not yet exist, it is set to the empty string before appending.

as1¶

Append to a user-defined string, switching roff compatibility mode off during macro execution (groff extension). The syntax of this request is the same as that of ds1. Since mandoc(1) does not implement roff compatibility mode at all, it handles this request as an alias for as.

asciify¶

Fully unformat a diversion. Currently unsupported.

backtrace¶

Print a backtrace of the input stack. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

bd¶

Artificially embolden by repeated printing with small shifts. Currently ignored.

bleedat¶

Set the BleedBox page parameter for PDF generation. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

blm¶

Set a blank line trap. Currently unsupported.

box¶

Begin a diversion without including a partially filled line. Currently unsupported.

boxa¶

Add to a diversion without including a partially filled line. Currently unsupported.

bp¶

Begin new page. Currently ignored.

BP¶

Define a frame and place a picture in it. This is a Heirloom extension and currently unsupported.

br¶

Break the output line. See man(7) and mdoc(7).

break¶

Break out of a while loop. Currently unsupported.

breakchar¶

Optional line break characters. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

brnl¶

Break output line after next N input lines. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

brp¶

Break and spread output line. Currently, this is implemented as an alias for br.

brpnl¶

Break and spread output line after next N input lines. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

c2¶

Change the no-break control character. Currently unsupported.

cc¶

Change the control character. Its syntax is as follows:

.cc [c]

If c is not specified, the control character is reset to ‘.’. Trailing characters are ignored.

ce¶

Center some lines. It takes one integer argument, specifying how many lines to center. Currently ignored.

cf¶

Output the contents of a file. Ignored because insecure.

cflags¶

Set character flags. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

ch¶

Change a trap location. Currently ignored.

char¶

Define a new glyph. Currently unsupported.

chop¶

Remove the last character from a macro, string, or diversion. Currently unsupported.

class¶

Define a character class. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

close¶

Close an open file. Ignored because insecure.

CL¶

Print text in color. This is a Heirloom extension and currently unsupported.

color¶

Activate or deactivate colors. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

composite¶

Define a name component for composite glyph names. This is a groff extension and currently unsupported.

continue¶

Immediately start the next iteration of a while loop. Currently unsupported.

cp¶

Switch roff compatibility mode on or off. Currently ignored.

cropat¶

Set the CropBox page parameter for PDF generation. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

cs¶

Constant character spacing mode. Currently ignored.

cu¶

Underline including whitespace. Currently ignored.

da¶

Append to a diversion. Currently unsupported.

dch¶

Change a trap location in the current diversion. This is a Heirloom extension and currently unsupported.

de¶

Define a roff macro. Its syntax can be either

.de name
macro definition
..

or

.de name end
macro definition
.end

Both forms define or redefine the macro name to represent the macro definition, which may consist of one or more input lines, including the newline characters terminating each line, optionally containing calls to roff requests, roff macros or high-level macros like man(7) or mdoc(7) macros, whichever applies to the document in question.

Specifying a custom end macro works in the same way as for ig; namely, the call to ‘.end’ first ends the macro definition, and after that, it is also evaluated as a roff request or roff macro, but not as a high-level macro.

The macro can be invoked later using the syntax

Regarding argument parsing, see MACRO SYNTAX above.

The line invoking the macro will be replaced in the input stream by the macro definition, replacing all occurrences of \\$N, where N is a digit, by the Nth argument. For example,

.de ZN
\fI\^\\$1\^\fP\\$2
..
.ZN XtFree .

produces

in the input stream, and thus in the output: XtFree. Each occurrence of \\$* is replaced with all the arguments, joined together with single blank characters.

Since macros and user-defined strings share a common string table, defining a macro name clobbers the user-defined string name, and the macro definition can also be printed using the ‘\*’ string interpolation syntax described below ds, but this is rarely useful because every macro definition contains at least one explicit newline character.

In order to prevent endless recursion, both groff and mandoc(1) limit the stack depth for expanding macros and strings to a large, but finite number, and mandoc(1) also limits the length of the expanded input line. Do not rely on the exact values of these limits.

de1¶

Define a roff macro that will be executed with roff compatibility mode switched off during macro execution. This is a groff extension. Since mandoc(1) does not implement roff compatibility mode at all, it handles this request as an alias for de.

defcolor¶

Define a color name. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

dei¶

Define a roff macro, specifying the macro name indirectly (groff extension). The syntax of this request is the same as that of de. The request

has the same effect as:

dei1¶

Define a roff macro that will be executed with roff compatibility mode switched off during macro execution, specifying the macro name indirectly (groff extension). Since mandoc(1) does not implement roff compatibility mode at all, it handles this request as an alias for dei.

device¶

This request only makes sense with the groff-specific intermediate output format and is unsupported.

devicem¶

This request only makes sense with the groff-specific intermediate output format and is unsupported.

di¶

Begin a diversion. Currently unsupported.

do¶

Execute roff request or macro line with compatibility mode disabled. Currently unsupported.

ds¶

Define a user-defined string. Its syntax is as follows:

The name and string arguments are space-separated. If the string begins with a double-quote character, that character will not be part of the string. All remaining characters on the input line form the string, including whitespace and double-quote characters, even trailing ones.

The string can be interpolated into subsequent text by using \*[name] for a name of arbitrary length, or \*(NN or \*N if the length of name is two or one characters, respectively. Interpolation can be prevented by escaping the leading backslash; that is, an asterisk preceded by an even number of backslashes does not trigger string interpolation.

Since user-defined strings and macros share a common string table, defining a string name clobbers the macro name, and the name used for defining a string can also be invoked as a macro, in which case the following input line will be appended to the string, forming a new input line passed to the roff parser. For example,

.ds badidea .S
.badidea
H SYNOPSIS

invokes the SH macro when used in a man(7) document. Such abuse is of course strongly discouraged.

ds1¶

Define a user-defined string that will be expanded with roff compatibility mode switched off during string expansion. This is a groff extension. Since mandoc(1) does not implement roff compatibility mode at all, it handles this request as an alias for ds.

dwh¶

Set a location trap in the current diversion. This is a Heirloom extension and currently unsupported.

dt¶

Set a trap within a diversion. Currently unsupported.

ec¶

Change the escape character. Currently unsupported.

ecs¶

Restore the escape character. Currently unsupported.

ecr¶

Save the escape character. Currently unsupported.

el¶

The "else" half of an if/else conditional. Pops a result off the stack of conditional evaluations pushed by ie and uses it as its conditional. If no stack entries are present (e.g., due to no prior ie calls) then false is assumed. The syntax of this request is similar to if except that the conditional is missing.

em¶

Set a trap at the end of input. Currently unsupported.

EN¶

End an equation block. See EQ.

eo¶

Disable the escape mechanism completely. Currently unsupported.

EP¶

End a picture started by BP. This is a Heirloom extension and currently unsupported.

EQ¶

Begin an equation block. See eqn(7) for a description of the equation language.

errprint¶

Print a string like an error message. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

ev¶

Switch to another environment. Currently unsupported.

evc¶

Copy an environment into the current environment. Currently unsupported.

ex¶

Abort processing and exit. Currently unsupported.

fallback¶

Select the fallback sequence for a font. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

fam¶

Change the font family. Takes one argument specifying the font family to be selected. It is a groff extension and currently ignored.

fc¶

Define a delimiting and a padding character for fields. Currently unsupported.

fchar¶

Define a fallback glyph. Currently unsupported.

fcolor¶

Set the fill color for \D objects. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

fdeferlig¶

Defer ligature building. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

feature¶

Enable or disable an OpenType feature. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

fi¶

Switch to fill mode. See man(7). Ignored in mdoc(7).

fkern¶

Control the use of kerning tables for a font. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

fl¶

Flush output. Currently ignored.

flig¶

Define ligatures. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

fp¶

Assign font position. Currently ignored.

fps¶

Mount a font with a special character map. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

fschar¶

Define a font-specific fallback glyph. This is a groff extension and currently unsupported.

fspacewidth¶

Set a font-specific width for the space character. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

fspecial¶

Conditionally define a special font. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

ft¶

Change the font. Its syntax is as follows:

The following font arguments are supported:

This request takes effect only locally, may be overridden by macros and escape sequences, and is only supported in man(7) for now.

ftr¶

Translate font name. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

fzoom¶

Zoom font size. Currently ignored.

gcolor¶

Set glyph color. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

hc¶

Set the hyphenation character. Currently ignored.

hcode¶

Set hyphenation codes of characters. Currently ignored.

hidechar¶

Hide characters in a font. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

hla¶

Set hyphenation language. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

hlm¶

Set maximum number of consecutive hyphenated lines. Currently ignored.

hpf¶

Load hyphenation pattern file. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

hpfa¶

Load hyphenation pattern file, appending to the current patterns. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

hpfcode¶

Define mapping values for character codes in hyphenation patterns. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

hw¶

Specify hyphenation points in words. Currently ignored.

hy¶

Set automatic hyphenation mode. Currently ignored.

hylang¶

Set hyphenation language. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

hylen¶

Minimum word length for hyphenation. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

hym¶

Set hyphenation margin. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

hypp¶

Define hyphenation penalties. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

hys¶

Set hyphenation space. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

ie¶

The "if" half of an if/else conditional. The result of the conditional is pushed into a stack used by subsequent invocations of el, which may be separated by any intervening input (or not exist at all). Its syntax is equivalent to if.

if¶

Begins a conditional. This request has the following syntax:

.if COND BODY

.if COND \{BODY
BODY...\}

.if COND \{\
BODY...
.\}

COND is a conditional statement. Currently, mandoc(1) supports the following subset of roff conditionals:

•

If ‘!’ is prefixed to COND, the condition is logically inverted.

•

If the first character of COND is ‘n’ (nroff mode) or ‘o’ (odd page), COND evaluates to true.

•

If the first character of COND is ‘c’ (character available), ‘d’ (string defined), ‘e’ (even page), ‘t’ (troff mode), or ‘v’ (vroff mode), COND evaluates to false.

•

If the first character of COND is ‘r’, it evaluates to true if the rest of COND is the name of an existing number register; otherwise, it evaluates to false.

•

If COND starts with a parenthesis or with an optionally signed integer number, it is evaluated according to the rules of Numerical expressions explained below. It evaluates to true if the result is positive, or to false if the result is zero or negative.

•

Otherwise, the first character of COND is regarded as a delimiter and COND evaluates to true if the string extending from its first to its second occurrence is equal to the string extending from its second to its third occurrence.

•

If COND cannot be parsed, it evaluates to false.

If a conditional is false, its children are not processed, but are syntactically interpreted to preserve the integrity of the input document. Thus,

will discard the ‘.ig’, which may lead to interesting results, but

will continue to syntactically interpret to the block close of the final conditional. Sub-conditionals, in this case, obviously inherit the truth value of the parent.

If the BODY section is begun by an escaped brace ‘\{’, scope continues until the end of the input line containing the matching closing-brace escape sequence ‘\}’. If the BODY is not enclosed in braces, scope continues until the end of the line. If the COND is followed by a BODY on the same line, whether after a brace or not, then requests and macros must begin with a control character. It is generally more intuitive, in this case, to write

.if COND \{\
.foo
bar
.\}

than having the request or macro follow as

The scope of a conditional is always parsed, but only executed if the conditional evaluates to true.

Note that the ‘\}’ is converted into a zero-width escape sequence if not passed as a standalone macro ‘.\}’. For example,

will result in ‘\}’ being considered an argument of the ‘Fl’ macro.

ig¶

Ignore input. Its syntax can be either

.ig
ignored text
..

or

.ig end
ignored text
.end

In the first case, input is ignored until a ‘..’ request is encountered on its own line. In the second case, input is ignored until the specified ‘.end’ macro is encountered. Do not use the escape character ‘\’ anywhere in the definition of end; it would cause very strange behaviour.

When the end macro is a roff request or a roff macro, like in

the subsequent invocation of if will first terminate the ignored text, then be invoked as usual. Otherwise, it only terminates the ignored text, and arguments following it or the ‘..’ request are discarded.

in¶

Change indentation. See man(7). Ignored in mdoc(7).

index¶

Find a substring in a string. This is a Heirloom extension and currently unsupported.

it¶

Set an input line trap. Its syntax is as follows:

The named macro will be invoked after processing the number of input text lines specified by the numerical expression. While evaluating the expression, the unit suffixes described below Scaling Widths are ignored.

itc¶

Set an input line trap, not counting lines ending with \c. Currently unsupported.

IX¶

To support the generation of a table of contents, pod2man(1) emits this user-defined macro, usually without defining it. To avoid reporting large numbers of spurious errors, mandoc(1) ignores it.

kern¶

Switch kerning on or off. Currently ignored.

kernafter¶

Increase kerning after some characters. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

kernbefore¶

Increase kerning before some characters. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

kernpair¶

Add a kerning pair to the kerning table. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

lc¶

Define a leader repetition character. Currently unsupported.

lc_ctype¶

Set the LC_CTYPE locale. This is a Heirloom extension and currently unsupported.

lds¶

Define a local string. This is a Heirloom extension and currently unsupported.

length¶

Count the number of input characters in a user-defined string. Currently unsupported.

letadj¶

Dynamic letter spacing and reshaping. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

lf¶

Change the line number for error messages. Ignored because insecure.

lg¶

Switch the ligature mechanism on or off. Currently ignored.

lhang¶

Hang characters at left margin. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

linetabs¶

Enable or disable line-tabs mode. This is a groff extension and currently unsupported.

ll¶

Change the output line length. Its syntax is as follows:

If the width argument is omitted, the line length is reset to its previous value. The default setting for terminal output is 78n. If a sign is given, the line length is added to or subtracted from; otherwise, it is set to the provided value. Using this request in new manuals is discouraged for several reasons, among others because it overrides the mandoc(1) -O width command line option.

lnr¶

Set local number register. This is a Heirloom extension and currently unsupported.

lnrf¶

Set local floating-point register. This is a Heirloom extension and currently unsupported.

lpfx¶

Set a line prefix. This is a Heirloom extension and currently unsupported.

ls¶

Set line spacing. It takes one integer argument specifying the vertical distance of subsequent output text lines measured in v units. Currently ignored.

lsm¶

Set a leading spaces trap. This is a groff extension and currently unsupported.

lt¶

Set title line length. Currently ignored.

mc¶

Print margin character in the right margin. Currently ignored.

mediasize¶

Set the device media size. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

minss¶

Set minimum word space. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

mk¶

Mark vertical position. Currently ignored.

mso¶

Load a macro file. Ignored because insecure.

na¶

Disable adjusting without changing the adjustment mode. Currently ignored.

ne¶

Declare the need for the specified minimum vertical space before the next trap or the bottom of the page. Currently ignored.

nf¶

Switch to no-fill mode. See man(7). Ignored by mdoc(7).

nh¶

Turn off automatic hyphenation mode. Currently ignored.

nhychar¶

Define hyphenation-inhibiting characters. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

nm¶

Print line numbers. Currently unsupported.

nn¶

Temporarily turn off line numbering. Currently unsupported.

nop¶

Execute the rest of the input line as a request or macro line. Currently unsupported.

nr¶

Define or change a register. A register is an arbitrary string value that defines some sort of state, which influences parsing and/or formatting. Its syntax is as follows:

For the syntax of expression, see Numerical expressions below. If it is prefixed by a sign, the register will be incremented or decremented instead of assigned to.

The following register name is handled specially:

nS

If set to a positive integer value, certain mdoc(7) macros will behave in the same way as in the SYNOPSIS section. If set to 0, these macros will behave in the same way as outside the SYNOPSIS section, even when called within the SYNOPSIS section itself. Note that starting a new mdoc(7) section with the Sh macro will reset this register.

nrf¶

Define or change a floating-point register. This is a Heirloom extension and currently unsupported.

nroff¶

Force nroff mode. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

ns¶

Turn on no-space mode. Currently ignored.

nx¶

Abort processing of the current input file and process another one. Ignored because insecure.

open¶

Open a file for writing. Ignored because insecure.

opena¶

Open a file for appending. Ignored because insecure.

os¶

Output saved vertical space. Currently ignored.

output¶

Output directly to intermediate output. Not supported.

padj¶

Globally control paragraph-at-once adjustment. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

papersize¶

Set the paper size. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

pc¶

Change the page number character. Currently ignored.

pev¶

Print environments. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

pi¶

Pipe output to a shell command. Ignored because insecure.

PI¶

Low-level request used by BP. This is a Heirloom extension and currently unsupported.

pl¶

Change page length. Takes one height argument. Currently ignored.

pm¶

Print names and sizes of macros, strings, and diversions. Currently ignored.

pn¶

Change page number of the next page. Currently ignored.

pnr¶

Print all number registers. Currently ignored.

po¶

Set horizontal page offset. Currently ignored.

ps¶

Change point size. Takes one numerical argument. Currently ignored.

psbb¶

Retrieve the bounding box of a PostScript file. Currently unsupported.

pshape¶

Set a special shape for the current paragraph. This is a Heirloom extension and currently unsupported.

pso¶

Include output of a shell command. Ignored because insecure.

ptr¶

Print the names and positions of all traps. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

pvs¶

Change post-vertical spacing. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

rchar¶

Remove glyph definitions. Currently unsupported.

rd¶

Read from standard input. Currently ignored.

recursionlimit¶

Set the maximum stack depth for recursive macros. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

return¶

Exit a macro and return to the caller. Currently unsupported.

rfschar¶

Remove font-specific fallback glyph definitions. Currently unsupported.

rhang¶

Hang characters at right margin. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

rj¶

Justify unfilled text to the right margin. Currently ignored.

rm¶

Remove a request, macro or string. Its syntax is as follows:

rn¶

Rename a request, macro, diversion, or string. Currently unsupported.

rnn¶

Rename a number register. Currently unsupported.

rr¶

Remove a register. Its syntax is as follows:

rs¶

End no-space mode. Currently ignored.

rt¶

Return to marked vertical position. Currently ignored.

schar¶

Define global fallback glyph. This is a groff extension and currently unsupported.

sentchar¶

Define sentence-ending characters. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

shc¶

Change the soft hyphen character. Currently ignored.

shift¶

Shift macro arguments. Currently unsupported.

sizes¶

Define permissible point sizes. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

so¶

Include a source file. Its syntax is as follows:

The file will be read and its contents processed as input in place of the ‘.so’ request line. To avoid inadvertent inclusion of unrelated files, mandoc(1) only accepts relative paths not containing the strings "../" and "/..".

This request requires man(1) to change to the right directory before calling mandoc(1), per convention to the root of the manual tree. Typical usage looks like:

As the whole concept is rather fragile, the use of so is discouraged. Use ln(1) instead.

spacewidth¶

Set the space width from the font metrics file. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

special¶

Define a special font. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

spreadwarn¶

Warn about wide spacing between words. Currently ignored.

ss¶

Set space character size. Currently ignored.

sty¶

Associate style with a font position. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

substring¶

Replace a user-defined string with a substring. Currently unsupported.

sv¶

Save vertical space. Currently ignored.

sy¶

Execute shell command. Ignored because insecure.

T&¶

Re-start a table layout, retaining the options of the prior table invocation. See TS.

ta¶

Set tab stops. Takes an arbitrary number of arguments. Currently unsupported.

tc¶

Change tab repetition character. Currently unsupported.

TE¶

End a table context. See TS.

ti¶

Temporary indent. Currently unsupported.

tkf¶

Enable track kerning for a font. Currently ignored.

tl¶

Print a title line. Currently unsupported.

tm¶

Print to standard error output. Currently ignored.

tm1¶

Print to standard error output, allowing leading blanks. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

tmc¶

Print to standard error output without a trailing newline. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

tr¶

Output character translation. Its syntax is as follows:

Pairs of ab characters are replaced (a for b). Replacement (or origin) characters may also be character escapes; thus,

replaces all invocations of \(xx with \(yy.

track¶

Static letter space tracking. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

transchar¶

Define transparent characters for sentence-ending. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

trf¶

Output the contents of a file, disallowing invalid characters. This is a groff extension and ignored because insecure.

trimat¶

Set the TrimBox page parameter for PDF generation. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

trin¶

Output character translation, ignored by asciify. Currently unsupported.

trnt¶

Output character translation, ignored by \!. Currently unsupported.

troff¶

Force troff mode. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

TS¶

Begin a table, which formats input in aligned rows and columns. See tbl(7) for a description of the tbl language.

uf¶

Globally set the underline font. Currently ignored.

ul¶

Underline. Currently ignored.

unformat¶

Unformat spaces and tabs in a diversion. Currently unsupported.

unwatch¶

Disable notification for string or macro. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

unwatchn¶

Disable notification for register. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

vpt¶

Enable or disable vertical position traps. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

vs¶

Change vertical spacing. Currently ignored.

warn¶

Set warning level. Currently ignored.

warnscale¶

Set the scaling indicator used in warnings. This is a groff extension and currently ignored.

watch¶

Notify on change of string or macro. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

watchlength¶

On change, report the contents of macros and strings up to the specified length. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

watchn¶

Notify on change of register. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

wh¶

Set a page location trap. Currently unsupported.

while¶

Repeated execution while a condition is true. Currently unsupported.

write¶

Write to an open file. Ignored because insecure.

writec¶

Write to an open file without appending a newline. Ignored because insecure.

writem¶

Write macro or string to an open file. Ignored because insecure.

xflag¶

Set the extension level. This is a Heirloom extension and currently ignored.

Numerical expressions¶

The nr, if, and ie requests accept integer numerical expressions as arguments. These are always evaluated using the C int type; integer overflow works the same way as in the C language. Numbers consist of an arbitrary number of digits ‘0’ to ‘9’ prefixed by an optional sign ‘+’ or ‘-’. Each number may be followed by one optional scaling unit described below Scaling Widths. The following equations hold:

1i = 6v = 6P = 10m = 10n = 72p = 1000M = 240u = 240
254c = 100i = 24000u = 24000
1f = 65536u = 65536

The following binary operators are implemented. Unless otherwise stated, they behave as in the C language:

+

addition

-

subtraction

*

multiplication

/

division

%

remainder of division

<

less than

>

greater than

==

equal to

=

equal to, same effect as == (this differs from C)

<=

less than or equal to

>=

greater than or equal to

<>

not equal to (corresponds to C !=; this one is of limited portability, it is supported by Heirloom roff, but not by groff)

&

logical and (corresponds to C &&)

:

logical or (corresponds to C ||)

<?

minimum (not available in C)

>?

maximum (not available in C)

There is no concept of precedence; evaluation proceeds from left to right, except when subexpressions are enclosed in parantheses. Inside parentheses, whitespace is ignored.

\<newline>¶

A backslash at the end of an input line can be used to continue the logical input line on the next physical input line, joining the text on both lines together as if it were on a single input line.

\<space>¶

The escape sequence backslash-space (‘\ ’) is an unpaddable space-sized non-breaking space character; see Whitespace.

\"¶

The rest of the input line is treated as Comments.

\%¶

Hyphenation allowed at this point of the word; ignored by mandoc(1).

\&¶

Non-printing zero-width character; see Whitespace.

\'¶

Acute accent special character; use ‘\(aa’ instead.

\(cc¶

Special Characters with two-letter names, see mandoc_char(7).

\*[name]¶

Interpolate the string with the name; see Predefined Strings and ds. For short names, there are variants \*c and \*(cc.

\,¶

Left italic correction (groff extension); ignored by mandoc(1).

\-¶

Special character “mathematical minus sign”.

\/¶

Right italic correction (groff extension); ignored by mandoc(1).

\[name]¶

Special Characters with names of arbitrary length, see mandoc_char(7).

\^¶

One-twelfth em half-narrow space character, effectively zero-width in mandoc(1).

\`¶

Grave accent special character; use ‘\(ga’ instead.

\{¶

Begin conditional input; see if.

\|¶

One-sixth em narrow space character, effectively zero-width in mandoc(1).

\}¶

End conditional input; see if.

\~¶

Paddable non-breaking space character.

\0¶

Digit width space character.

\A'string'¶

Anchor definition; ignored by mandoc(1).

\B'string'¶

Interpolate ‘1’ if string conforms to the syntax of Numerical expressions explained above and ‘0’ otherwise.

\b'string'¶

Bracket building function; ignored by mandoc(1).

\C'name'¶

Special Characters with names of arbitrary length.

\c¶

When encountered at the end of an input text line, the next input text line is considered to continue that line, even if there are request or macro lines in between. No whitespace is inserted.

\D'string'¶

Draw graphics function; ignored by mandoc(1).

\d¶

Move down by half a line; ignored by mandoc(1).

\e¶

Backslash special character.

\F[name]¶

Switch font family (groff extension); ignored by mandoc(1). For short names, there are variants \Fc and \F(cc.

\f[name]¶

Switch to the font name, see Text Decoration. For short names, there are variants \fc and \f(cc.

\g[name]¶

Interpolate the format of a number register; ignored by mandoc(1). For short names, there are variants \gc and \g(cc.

\H'[+|-]number'¶

Set the height of the current font; ignored by mandoc(1).

\h'number'¶

Horizontal motion; ignored by mandoc(1).

\k[name]¶

Mark horizontal input place in register; ignored by mandoc(1). For short names, there are variants \kc and \k(cc.

\L'number[c]'¶

Vertical line drawing function; ignored by mandoc(1).

\l'number[c]'¶

Horizontal line drawing function; ignored by mandoc(1).

\M[name]¶

Set fill (background) color (groff extension); ignored by mandoc(1). For short names, there are variants \Mc and \M(cc.

\m[name]¶

Set glyph drawing color (groff extension); ignored by mandoc(1). For short names, there are variants \mc and \m(cc.

\N'number'¶

Character number on the current font.

\n[name]¶

Interpolate the number register name. For short names, there are variants \nc and \n(cc.

\o'string'¶

Overstrike, writing all the characters contained in the string to the same output position. In terminal and HTML output modes, only the last one of the characters is visible.

\R'name [+|-]number'¶

Set number register; ignored by mandoc(1).

\S'number'¶

Slant output; ignored by mandoc(1).

\s'[+|-]number'¶

Change point size; ignored by mandoc(1). Alternative forms \s[+|-]n, \s[+|-]'number', \s[[+|-]number], and \s[+|-][number] are also parsed and ignored.

\t¶

Horizontal tab; ignored by mandoc(1).

\u¶

Move up by half a line; ignored by mandoc(1).

\V[name]¶

Interpolate an environment variable; ignored by mandoc(1). For short names, there are variants \Vc and \V(cc.

\v'number'¶

Vertical motion; ignored by mandoc(1).

\w'string'¶

Interpolate the width of the string. The mandoc(1) implementation assumes that after expansion of user-defined strings, the string only contains normal characters, no escape sequences, and that each character has a width of 24 basic units.

\X'string'¶

Output string as device control function; ignored in nroff mode and by mandoc(1).

\x'number'¶

Extra line space function; ignored by mandoc(1).

\Y[name]¶

Output a string as a device control function; ignored in nroff mode and by mandoc(1). For short names, there are variants \Yc and \Y(cc.

\Z'string'¶

Print string with zero width and height; ignored by mandoc(1).

\z¶

Output the next character without advancing the cursor position.