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Name
groff_mdoc — compose BSD-style manual (man) pages with GNU roff
Synopsis
groff -mdoc file ...
Description
The GNU implementation of the mdoc macro package is part of the groff(1) document formatting system. mdoc is a
structurally- and semantically-oriented package for writing Unix manual pages with troff(1). Its predecessor,
the man(7) package, primarily addressed page layout and presentational concerns, leaving the selection of fonts
and other typesetting details to the individual author. This discretion has led to divergent styling practices
among authors using it.
mdoc organizes its macros into domains. The page structure domain lays out the page and comprises titles, sec‐
tion headings, displays, and lists. The general text domain supplies macros to quote or style text, or to inter‐
polate common noun phrases. The manual domain offers semantic macros corresponding to the terminology used by
practitioners in discussion of Unix commands, routines, and files. Manual domain macros distinguish command-line
arguments and options, function names, function parameters, pathnames, variables, cross references to other man‐
ual pages, and so on. These terms are meaningful both to the author and the readers of a manual page. It is
hoped that the resulting increased consistency of the man page corpus will enable easier translation to future
documentation tools.
Throughout Unix documentation, a manual entry is referred to simply as a “man page”, regardless of its length,
without gendered implication, and irrespective of the macro package selected for its composition.
Getting started
The mdoc package attempts to simplify man page authorship and maintenance without requiring mastery of the roff
language. This document presents only essential facts about roff. For further background, including a discussion
of basic typographical concepts like “breaking”, “filling”, and “adjustment”, see roff(7). Specialized units of
measurement also arise, namely ens, vees, inches, and points, abbreviated “n”, “v”, “i”, and “p”, respectively;
see section “Measurements” of groff(7).
For brief examples, we employ an arrow notation illustrating a transformation of input on the left to rendered
output on the right. Consider the .Dq macro, which double-quotes its arguments.
.Dq man page → “man page”
Usage
An mdoc macro is called by placing the roff control character, ‘.’ (dot) at the beginning of a line followed by
its name. In this document, we often discuss a macro name with this leading dot to identify it clearly, but the
dot is not part of its name. Space or tab characters can separate the dot from the macro name. Arguments may
follow, separated from the macro name and each other by spaces, but not tabs. The dot at the beginning of the
line prepares the formatter to expect a macro name. A dot followed immediately by a newline is ignored; this is
called the empty request. To begin an input line with a dot (or a neutral apostrophe ‘'’) in some context other
than a macro call, precede it with the ‘\&’ escape sequence; this is a dummy character, not formatted for output.
The backslash is the roff escape character; it can appear anywhere and it always followed by at least one more
character. If followed by a newline, the backslash escapes the input line break; you can thus keep input lines
to a reasonable length without affecting their interpretation.
Macros in GNU troff accept an unlimited number of arguments, in contrast to other troffs that often can't handle
more than nine. In limited cases, arguments may be continued or extended on the next input line without resort
to the ‘\newline’ escape sequence; see subsection “Extended arguments” below. Neutral double quotes " can be
used to group multiple words into an argument; see subsection “Passing space characters in an argument” below.
Most of mdoc's general text and manual domain macros parse their argument lists for callable macro names. This
means that an argument in the list matching a general text or manual domain macro name (and defined to be
callable) will be called with the remaining arguments when it is encountered. In such cases, the argument, al‐
though the name of a macro, is not preceded by a dot. Macro calls can thus be nested. This approach to macro
argument processing is a unique characteristic of the mdoc package, not a general feature of roff syntax.
For example, the option macro, .Op, may call the flag and argument macros, .Fl and .Ar, to specify an optional
flag with an argument.
.Op Fl s Ar bytes → [-s bytes]
To prevent a word from being interpreted as a macro name, precede it with the dummy character.
.Op \&Fl s \&Ar bytes → [Fl s Ar bytes]
In this document, macros whose argument lists are parsed for callable arguments are referred to as parsed, and
those that may be called from an argument list are referred to as callable. This usage is a technical faux pas,
since all mdoc macros are in fact interpreted (unless prevented with ‘\&’), but as it is cumbersome to constantly
refer to macros as “being able to call other macros”, we employ the term “parsed” instead. Except where explic‐
itly stated, all mdoc macros are parsed and callable.
In the following, we term an mdoc macro that starts a line (with a leading dot) a command if a distinction from
those appearing as arguments of other macros is necessary.
Passing space characters in an argument
Sometimes it is desirable to give a macro an argument containing one or more space characters, for instance to
specify a particular arrangement of arguments demanded by the macro. Additionally, quoting multi-word arguments
that are to be treated the same makes mdoc work faster; macros that parse arguments do so once (at most) for
each. For example, the function command .Fn expects its first argument to be the name of a function and any re‐
maining arguments to be function parameters. Because C language standards mandate the inclusion of types and
identifiers in the parameter lists of function definitions, each ‘Fn’ parameter after the first will be at least
two words in length, as in “int foo”.
There are a few ways to embed a space in a macro argument. One is to use the unadjustable space escape sequence
\space. The formatter treats this escape sequence as if it were any other printable character, and will not
break a line there as it would a word space when the output line is full. This method is useful for macro argu‐
ments that are not expected to straddle an output line boundary, but has a drawback: this space does not adjust
as others do when the output line is formatted. An alternative is to use the unbreakable space escape sequence,
‘\~’, which cannot break but does adjust. This groff extension is widely but not perfectly portable. Another
method is to enclose the string in double quotes.
.Fn fetch char\ *str → fetch(char *str)
.Fn fetch char\~*str → fetch(char *str)
.Fn fetch "char *str" → fetch(char *str)
If the ‘\’ before the space in the first example or the double quotes in the third example were omitted, ‘.Fn’
would see three arguments, and the result would contain an undesired comma.
.Fn fetch char *str → fetch(char, *str)
Trailing space characters
It is wise to remove trailing spaces from the ends of input lines. Should the need arise to put a formattable
space at the end of a line, do so with the unadjustable or unbreakable space escape sequences.
Formatting the backslash glyph
When you need the roff escape character ‘\’ to appear in the output, use ‘\e’ or ‘\(rs’ instead. Technically,
‘\e’ formats the current escape character; it works reliably as long as no roff request is used to change it,
which should never happen in man pages. ‘\(rs’ is a groff special character escape sequence that explicitly for‐
mats the “reverse solidus” (backslash) glyph.
Other possible pitfalls
groff mdoc warns when an empty input line is found outside of a display, a topic presented in subsection
“Examples and displays” below. Use empty requests to space the source document for maintenance.
Leading spaces cause a break and are formatted. Avoid this behaviour if possible. Similarly, do not put more
than one space between words in an ordinary text line; they are not “normalized” to a single space as other text
formatters might do.
Don't try to use the neutral double quote character ‘"’ to represent itself in an argument. Use the special
character escape sequence ‘\(dq’ to format it. Further, this glyph should not be used for conventional quota‐
tion; mdoc offers several quotation macros. See subsection “Enclosure and quoting macros” below.
The formatter attempts to detect the ends of sentences and by default puts the equivalent of two spaces between
sentences on the same output line; see roff(7). To defeat this detection in a parsed list of macro arguments,
put ‘\&’ before the punctuation mark. Thus,
The
.Ql .
character.
.Pp
The
.Ql \&.
character.
.Pp
.No test .
test
.Pp
.No test.
test
gives
The ‘’. character
The ‘.’ character.
test. test
test. test
as output. As can be seen in the first and third output lines, mdoc handles punctuation characters specially in
macro arguments. This will be explained in section “General syntax” below.
A comment in the source file of a man page can begin with ‘.\"’ at the start of an input line, ‘\"’ after other
input, or ‘\#’ anywhere (the last is a groff extension); the remainder of any such line is ignored.
A man page template
Use mdoc to construct a man page from the following template.
.\" The following three macro calls are required.
.Dd date
.Dt topic [section-identifier [section-keyword-or-title]]
.Os [package-or-operating system [version-or-release]]
.Sh Name
.Nm topic
.Nd summary-description
.\" The next heading is used in sections 2 and 3.
.\" .Sh Library
.\" The next heading is used in sections 1-4, 6, 8, and 9.
.Sh Synopsis
.Sh Description
.\" Uncomment and populate the following sections as needed.
.\" .Sh "Implementation notes"
.\" The next heading is used in sections 2, 3, and 9.
.\" .Sh "Return values"
.\" The next heading is used in sections 1, 3, 6, and 8.
.\" .Sh Environment
.\" .Sh Files
.\" The next heading is used in sections 1, 6, and 8.
.\" .Sh "Exit status"
.\" .Sh Examples
.\" The next heading is used in sections 1, 4, 6, 8, and 9.
.\" .Sh Diagnostics
.\" .Sh Compatibility
.\" The next heading is used in sections 2, 3, 4, and 9.
.\" .Sh Errors
.\" .Sh "See also"
.\" .Sh Standards
.\" .Sh History
.\" .Sh Authors
.\" .Sh Caveats
.\" .Sh Bugs
The first items in the template are the commands .Dd, .Dt, and .Os. They identify the page and are discussed be‐
low in section “Title macros”.
The remaining items in the template are section headings (.Sh); of which “Name” and “Description” are mandatory.
These headings are discussed in section “Page structure domain”, which follows section “Manual domain”. Famil‐
iarize yourself with manual domain macros first; we use them to illustrate the use of page structure domain
macros.
Conventions
In the descriptions of macros below, square brackets surround optional arguments. An ellipsis (‘...’) represents
repetition of the preceding argument zero or more times. Alternative values of a parameter are separated with
‘|’. If a mandatory parameter can take one of several alternative values, use braces to enclose the set, with
spaces and ‘|’ separating the items.
ztar {c | x} [-w [-y | -z]] [-f archive] member ...
An alternative to using braces is to separately synopsize distinct operation modes, particularly if the list of
valid optional arguments is dependent on the user's choice of a mandatory parameter.
ztar c [-w [-y | -z]] [-f archive] member ...
ztar x [-w [-y | -z]] [-f archive] member ...
Most macros affect subsequent arguments until another macro or a newline is encountered. For example, ‘.Li ls Bq
Ar file’ doesn't produce ‘ls [file]’, but ‘ls [file]’. Consequently, a warning message is emitted for many com‐
mands if the first argument is itself a macro, since it cancels the effect of the preceding one. On rare occa‐
sions, you might want to format a word along with surrounding brackets as a literal.
.Li "ls [file]" → ls [file] # list any files named e, f, i, or l
Many macros possess an implicit width, used when they are contained in lists and displays. If you avoid relying
on these default measurements, you escape potential conflicts with site-local modifications of the mdoc package.
Explicit -width and -offset arguments to the .Bl and .Bd macros are preferable.
Title macros
We present the mandatory title macros first due to their importance even though they formally belong to the page
structure domain macros. They designate the topic, date of last revision, and the operating system or software
project associated with the page. Call each once at the beginning of the document. They populate the page head‐
ers and footers, which are in roff parlance termed “titles”.
.Dd date
This first macro of any mdoc manual records the last modification date of the document source. Arguments
are concatenated and separated with space characters.
Historically, date was written in U.S. traditional format, “Month day , year” where Month is the full
month name in English, day an integer without a leading zero, and year the four-digit year. This local‐
ism is not enforced, however. You may prefer ISO 8601 format, YYYY-MM-DD. A date of the form ‘$Mdocdate:
Month day year $’ is also recognized. It is used in OpenBSD manuals to automatically insert the current
date when committing.
This macro is neither callable nor parsed.
.Dt topic [section-identifier [section-keyword-or-title]]
topic is the subject of the man page. A section-identifier that begins with an integer in the range 1–9
or is one of the words ‘unass’, ‘draft’, or ‘paper’ selects a predefined section title. This use of
“section” has nothing to do with the section headings otherwise discussed in this page; it arises from
the organizational scheme of printed and bound Unix manuals.
In this implementation, the following titles are defined for integral section numbers.
1 General Commands Manual
2 System Calls Manual
3 Library Functions Manual
4 Kernel Interfaces Manual
5 File Formats Manual
6 Games Manual
7 Miscellaneous Information Manual
8 System Manager's Manual
9 Kernel Developer's Manual
A section title may be arbitrary or one of the following abbreviations.
USD User's Supplementary Documents
PS1 Programmer's Supplementary Documents
AMD Ancestral Manual Documents
SMM System Manager's Manual
URM User's Reference Manual
PRM Programmer's Manual
KM Kernel Manual
IND Manual Master Index
LOCAL Local Manual
CON Contributed Software Manual
For compatibility, ‘MMI’ can be used for ‘IND’, and ‘LOC’ for ‘LOCAL’. Values from the previous table
will specify a new section title. If section-keyword-or-title designates a computer architecture recog‐
nized by groff mdoc, its value is prepended to the default section title as specified by the second para‐
meter. By default, the following architecture keywords are defined.
acorn26, acorn32, algor, alpha, amd64, amiga, amigappc, arc, arm, arm26, arm32, armish, atari,
aviion, beagle, bebox, cats, cesfic, cobalt, dreamcast, emips, evbarm, evbmips, evbppc, evbsh3,
ews4800mips, hp300, hp700, hpcarm, hpcmips, hpcsh, hppa, hppa64, i386, ia64, ibmnws, iyonix, landisk,
loongson, luna68k, luna88k, m68k, mac68k, macppc, mips, mips64, mipsco, mmeye, mvme68k, mvme88k,
mvmeppc, netwinder, news68k, newsmips, next68k, ofppc, palm, pc532, playstation2, pmax, pmppc,
powerpc, prep, rs6000, sandpoint, sbmips, sgi, sgimips, sh3, shark, socppc, solbourne, sparc,
sparc64, sun2, sun3, tahoe, vax, x68k, x86_64, xen, zaurus
If a section title is not determined after the above matches have been attempted,
section-keyword-or-title is used.
The effects of varying ‘.Dt’ arguments on the page header content are shown below. Observe how ‘\&’ pre‐
vents the numeral 2 from being used to look up a predefined section title.
.Dt foo 2 → foo(2) System Calls Manual foo(2)
.Dt foo 2 m68k → foo(2) m68k System Calls Manual foo(2)
.Dt foo 2 baz → foo(2) System Calls Manual foo(2)
.Dt foo \&2 baz → foo(2) baz foo(2)
.Dt foo "" baz → foo baz foo
.Dt foo M Z80 → foo(M) Z80 foo(M)
roff strings define section titles and architecture identifiers. Site-specific additions might be found
in the file mdoc.local; see section “Files” below.
This macro is neither callable nor parsed.
.Os [operating-system-or-package-name [version-or-release]]
This macro associates the document with a software distribution. When composing a man page to be in‐
cluded in the base installation of an operating system, do not provide an argument; mdoc will supply it.
In this implementation, that default is “GNU”. It may be overridden in the site configuration file,
mdoc.local; see section “Files” below. A portable software package maintaining its own man pages can
supply its name and version number or release identifier as optional arguments. A version-or-release ar‐
gument should use the standard nomenclature for the software specified. In the following table, recog‐
nized version-or-release arguments for some predefined operating systems are listed. As with .Dt, site
additions might be defined in mdoc.local.
ATT 7th, 7, III, 3, V, V.2, V.3, V.4
BSD 3, 4, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.3t, 4.3T, 4.3r, 4.3R, 4.4
NetBSD 0.8, 0.8a, 0.9, 0.9a, 1.0, 1.0a, 1.1, 1.2, 1.2a, 1.2b, 1.2c, 1.2d, 1.2e, 1.3, 1.3a, 1.4,
1.4.1, 1.4.2, 1.4.3, 1.5, 1.5.1, 1.5.2, 1.5.3, 1.6, 1.6.1, 1.6.2, 1.6.3, 2.0, 2.0.1,
2.0.2, 2.0.3, 2.1, 3.0, 3.0.1, 3.0.2, 3.0.3, 3.1, 3.1.1, 4.0, 4.0.1, 5.0, 5.0.1, 5.0.2,
5.1, 5.1.2, 5.1.3, 5.1.4, 5.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 6.0, 6.0.1, 6.0.2, 6.0.3, 6.0.4, 6.0.5,
6.0.6, 6.1, 6.1.1, 6.1.2, 6.1.3, 6.1.4, 6.1.5, 7.0, 7.0.1, 7.0.2, 7.1, 7.1.1, 7.1.2,
7.2, 8.0, 8.1
FreeBSD 1.0, 1.1, 1.1.5, 1.1.5.1, 2.0, 2.0.5, 2.1, 2.1.5, 2.1.6, 2.1.7, 2.2, 2.2.1, 2.2.2,
2.2.5, 2.2.6, 2.2.7, 2.2.8, 2.2.9, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 4.0, 4.1, 4.1.1, 4.2,
4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.6.2, 4.7, 4.8, 4.9, 4.10, 4.11, 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.2.1, 5.3, 5.4,
5.5, 6.0, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 9.0,
9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 11.0, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3, 12.0, 12.1
OpenBSD 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, 2.9, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6,
3.7, 3.8, 3.9, 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8, 4.9, 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3,
5.4, 5.5, 5.6, 5.7, 5.8, 5.9, 6.0, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5, 6.6
DragonFly 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 1.8.1, 1.9, 1.10, 1.11, 1.12, 1.12.2, 1.13,
2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, 2.9, 2.9.1, 2.10, 2.10.1, 2.11, 2.12, 2.13,
3.0, 3.0.1, 3.0.2, 3.1, 3.2, 3.2.1, 3.2.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.4.1, 3.4.2, 3.4.3, 3.5, 3.6,
3.6.1, 3.6.2, 3.7, 3.8, 3.8.1, 3.8.2, 4.0, 4.0.1, 4.0.2, 4.0.3, 4.0.4, 4.0.5, 4.0.6,
4.1, 4.2, 4.2.1, 4.2.2, 4.2.3, 4.2.4, 4.3, 4.4, 4.4.1, 4.4.2, 4.4.3, 4.5, 4.6, 4.6.1,
4.6.2, 4.7, 4.8, 4.8.1, 4.9, 5.0, 5.0.1, 5.0.2, 5.1, 5.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.4.1,
5.4.2, 5.4.3, 5.5, 5.6, 5.6.1, 5.6.2
Darwin 8.0.0, 8.1.0, 8.2.0, 8.3.0, 8.4.0, 8.5.0, 8.6.0, 8.7.0, 8.8.0, 8.9.0, 8.10.0, 8.11.0,
9.0.0, 9.1.0, 9.2.0, 9.3.0, 9.4.0, 9.5.0, 9.6.0, 9.7.0, 9.8.0, 10.0.0, 10.1.0, 10.2.0,
10.3.0, 10.4.0, 10.5.0, 10.6.0, 10.7.0, 10.8.0, 11.0.0, 11.1.0, 11.2.0, 11.3.0, 11.4.0,
11.5.0, 12.0.0, 12.1.0, 12.2.0, 13.0.0, 13.1.0, 13.2.0, 13.3.0, 13.4.0, 14.0.0, 14.1.0,
14.2.0, 14.3.0, 14.4.0, 14.5.0, 15.0.0, 15.1.0, 15.2.0, 15.3.0, 15.4.0, 15.5.0, 15.6.0,
16.0.0, 16.1.0, 16.2.0, 16.3.0, 16.4.0, 16.5.0, 16.6.0, 17.0.0, 17.1.0, 17.2.0, 17.3.0,
17.4.0, 17.5.0, 17.6.0, 17.7.0, 18.0.0, 18.1.0, 18.2.0, 18.3.0, 18.4.0, 18.5.0, 18.6.0,
18.7.0, 19.0.0, 19.1.0, 19.2.0
Historically, the first argument used with .Dt was BSD or ATT. An unrecognized version argument after
ATT is replaced with “Unix”; for other predefined abbreviations, it is ignored and a warning diagnostic
emitted. Otherwise, unrecognized arguments are displayed verbatim in the page footer. For instance,
this page uses “.Os groff 1.23.0” whereas a locally produced page might employ “.Os "UXYZ CS
Department"”, omitting versioning.
This macro is neither callable nor parsed.
Introduction to manual and general text domains
What's in a Name...
The manual domain macro names are derived from the day to day informal language used to describe commands, sub‐
routines and related files. Slightly different variations of this language are used to describe the three dif‐
ferent aspects of writing a man page. First, there is the description of mdoc macro command usage. Second is
the description of a Unix command with mdoc macros, and third, the description of a command to a user in the ver‐
bal sense; that is, discussion of a command in the text of a man page.
In the first case, troff macros are themselves a type of command; the general syntax for a troff command is:
.Xx argument1 argument2 ...
‘.Xx’ is a macro command, and anything following it are arguments to be processed. In the second case, the de‐
scription of a Unix command using the manual domain macros is a bit more involved; a typical “Synopsis” command
line might be displayed as:
filter [-flag] ⟨infile⟩ ⟨outfile⟩
Here, filter is the command name and the bracketed string -flag is a flag argument designated as optional by the
option brackets. In mdoc terms, ⟨infile⟩ and ⟨outfile⟩ are called meta arguments; in this example, the user has
to replace the meta expressions given in angle brackets with real file names. Note that in this document meta
arguments are used to describe mdoc commands; in most man pages, meta variables are not specifically written with
angle brackets. The macros that formatted the above example:
.Nm filter
.Op Fl flag
.Ao Ar infile Ac Ao Ar outfile Ac
In the third case, discussion of commands and command syntax includes both examples above, but may add more de‐
tail. The arguments ⟨infile⟩ and ⟨outfile⟩ from the example above might be referred to as operands or file
arguments. Some command-line argument lists are quite long:
make [-eiknqrstv] [-D variable] [-d flags] [-f makefile] [-I directory] [-j max_jobs] [variable=value]
[target ...]
Here one might talk about the command make and qualify the argument, makefile, as an argument to the flag, -f, or
discuss the optional file operand target. In the verbal context, such detail can prevent confusion, however the
mdoc package does not have a macro for an argument to a flag. Instead the ‘Ar’ argument macro is used for an
operand or file argument like target as well as an argument to a flag like variable. The make command line was
produced from:
.Nm make
.Op Fl eiknqrstv
.Op Fl D Ar variable
.Op Fl d Ar flags
.Op Fl f Ar makefile
.Op Fl I Ar directory
.Op Fl j Ar max_jobs
.Op Ar variable Ns = Ns Ar value
.Bk
.Op Ar target ...
.Ek
The ‘.Bk’ and ‘.Ek’ macros are explained in “Keeps”.
General Syntax
The manual domain and general text domain macros share a similar syntax with a few minor deviations; most no‐
tably, ‘.Ar’, ‘.Fl’, ‘.Nm’, and ‘.Pa’ differ only when called without arguments; and ‘.Fn’ and ‘.Xr’ impose an
order on their argument lists. All manual domain macros are capable of recognizing and properly handling punctu‐
ation, provided each punctuation character is separated by a leading space. If a command is given:
.Ar sptr, ptr),
The result is:
sptr, ptr),
The punctuation is not recognized and all is output in the font used by ‘.Ar’. If the punctuation is separated
by a leading white space:
.Ar sptr , ptr ) ,
The result is:
sptr, ptr),
The punctuation is now recognized and output in the default font distinguishing it from the argument strings. To
remove the special meaning from a punctuation character, escape it with ‘\&’.
The following punctuation characters are recognized by mdoc:
. , : ; (
) [ ] ? !
troff is limited as a macro language, and has difficulty when presented with a string containing certain mathe‐
matical, logical, or quotation character sequences:
{+,-,/,*,%,<,>,<=,>=,=,==,&,`,',"}
The problem is that troff may assume it is supposed to actually perform the operation or evaluation suggested by
the characters. To prevent the accidental evaluation of these characters, escape them with ‘\&’. Typical syntax
is shown in the first manual domain macro displayed below, ‘.Ad’.
Manual domain
Addresses
The address macro identifies an address construct.
Usage: .Ad ⟨address⟩ ...
.Ad addr1 addr1
.Ad addr1 . addr1.
.Ad addr1 , file2 addr1, file2
.Ad f1 , f2 , f3 : f1, f2, f3:
.Ad addr ) ) , addr)),
The default width is 12n.
Author Name
The ‘.An’ macro is used to specify the name of the author of the item being documented, or the name of the author
of the actual manual page.
Usage: .An ⟨author name⟩ ...
.An "Joe Author" Joe Author
.An "Joe Author" , Joe Author,
.An "Joe Author" Aq nobody@FreeBSD.org
Joe Author <nobody@FreeBSD.org>
.An "Joe Author" ) ) , Joe Author)),
The default width is 12n.
In a section titled “Authors”, ‘An’ causes a break, allowing each new name to appear on its own line. If this is
not desirable,
.An -nosplit
call will turn this off. To turn splitting back on, write
.An -split
Arguments
The .Ar argument macro may be used whenever an argument is referenced. If called without arguments, ‘file ...’
is output. This places the ellipsis in italics, which is ugly and incorrect, and will be noticed on terminals
that underline text instead of using an oblique typeface. We recommend using ‘.Ar file No ...’ instead.
Usage: .Ar [⟨argument⟩] ...
.Ar file ...
.Ar file No ... file ...
.Ar file1 file1
.Ar file1 . file1.
.Ar file1 file2 file1 file2
.Ar f1 f2 f3 : f1 f2 f3:
.Ar file ) ) , file)),
The default width is 12n.
Configuration Declaration (Section Four Only)
The ‘.Cd’ macro is used to demonstrate a config(8) declaration for a device interface in a section four manual.
Usage: .Cd ⟨argument⟩ ...
.Cd "device le0 at scode?" device le0 at scode?
In a section titled “Synopsis”, ‘Cd’ causes a break before and after its arguments.
The default width is 12n.
Command Modifiers
The command modifier is identical to the ‘.Fl’ (flag) command with the exception that the ‘.Cm’ macro does not
assert a dash in front of every argument. Traditionally flags are marked by the preceding dash, however, some
commands or subsets of commands do not use them. Command modifiers may also be specified in conjunction with in‐
teractive commands such as editor commands. See “Flags”.
The default width is 10n.
Defined Variables
A variable (or constant) that is defined in an include file is specified by the macro ‘.Dv’.
Usage: .Dv ⟨defined-variable⟩ ...
.Dv MAXHOSTNAMELEN MAXHOSTNAMELEN
.Dv TIOCGPGRP ) TIOCGPGRP)
The default width is 12n.
Errnos
The ‘.Er’ errno macro specifies the error return value for section 2, 3, and 9 library routines. The second ex‐
ample below shows ‘.Er’ used with the ‘.Bq’ general text domain macro, as it would be used in a section two man‐
ual page.
Usage: .Er ⟨errno type⟩ ...
.Er ENOENT ENOENT
.Er ENOENT ) ; ENOENT);
.Bq Er ENOTDIR [ENOTDIR]
The default width is 17n.
Environment Variables
The ‘.Ev’ macro specifies an environment variable.
Usage: .Ev ⟨argument⟩ ...
.Ev DISPLAY DISPLAY
.Ev PATH . PATH.
.Ev PRINTER ) ) , PRINTER)),
The default width is 15n.
Flags
The ‘.Fl’ macro handles command-line flags. It prepends a dash, ‘-’, to the flag. For interactive command flags
that are not prepended with a dash, the ‘.Cm’ (command modifier) macro is identical, but without the dash.
Usage: .Fl ⟨argument⟩ ...
.Fl -
.Fl cfv -cfv
.Fl cfv . -cfv.
.Cm cfv . cfv.
.Fl s v t -s -v -t
.Fl - , --,
.Fl xyz ) , -xyz),
.Fl | - |
The ‘.Fl’ macro without any arguments results in a dash representing stdin/stdout. Note that giving ‘.Fl’ a sin‐
gle dash will result in two dashes.
The default width is 12n.
Function Declarations
The ‘.Fd’ macro is used in the “Synopsis” section with section two or three functions. It is neither callable
nor parsed.
Usage: .Fd ⟨argument⟩ ...
.Fd "#include <sys/types.h>" #include <sys/types.h>
In a section titled “Synopsis”, ‘Fd’ causes a break if a function has already been presented and a break has not
occurred, leaving vertical space between one function declaration and the next.
In a section titled “Synopsis”, the ‘In’ macro represents the #include statement, and is the short form of the
above example. It specifies the C header file as being included in a C program. It also causes a break.
While not in the “Synopsis” section, it represents the header file enclosed in angle brackets.
Usage: .In ⟨header file⟩
.In stdio.h <stdio.h>
.In stdio.h <stdio.h>
Function Types
This macro is intended for the “Synopsis” section. It may be used anywhere else in the man page without prob‐
lems, but its main purpose is to present the function type (in BSD kernel normal form) for the “Synopsis” of sec‐
tions two and three. (It causes a break, allowing the function name to appear on the next line.)
Usage: .Ft ⟨type⟩ ...
.Ft struct stat struct stat
Functions (Library Routines)
The ‘.Fn’ macro is modeled on ANSI C conventions.
Usage: .Fn ⟨function⟩ [⟨parameter⟩] ...
.Fn getchar getchar()
.Fn strlen ) , strlen()),
.Fn align "char *ptr" , align(char *ptr),
Note that any call to another macro signals the end of the ‘.Fn’ call (it will insert a closing parenthesis at
that point).
For functions with many parameters (which is rare), the macros ‘.Fo’ (function open) and ‘.Fc’ (function close)
may be used with ‘.Fa’ (function argument).
Example:
.Ft int
.Fo res_mkquery
.Fa "int op"
.Fa "char *dname"
.Fa "int class"
.Fa "int type"
.Fa "char *data"
.Fa "int datalen"
.Fa "struct rrec *newrr"
.Fa "char *buf"
.Fa "int buflen"
.Fc
Produces:
int res_mkquery(int op, char *dname, int class, int type, char *data, int datalen, struct rrec *newrr,
char *buf, int buflen)
Typically, in a “Synopsis” section, the function delcaration will begin the line. If more than one function is
presented in the “Synopsis” section and a function type has not been given, a break will occur, leaving vertical
space between the current and prior function names.
The default width values of ‘.Fn’ and ‘.Fo’ are 12n and 16n, respectively.
Function Arguments
The ‘.Fa’ macro is used to refer to function arguments (parameters) outside of the “Synopsis” section of the man‐
ual or inside the “Synopsis” section if the enclosure macros ‘.Fo’ and ‘.Fc’ instead of ‘.Fn’ are used. ‘.Fa’
may also be used to refer to structure members.
Usage: .Fa ⟨function argument⟩ ...
.Fa d_namlen ) ) , d_namlen)),
.Fa iov_len iov_len
The default width is 12n.
Return Values
The ‘.Rv’ macro generates text for use in the “Return values” section.
Usage: .Rv [-std] [⟨function⟩ ...]
For example, ‘.Rv -std atexit’ produces:
The atexit() function returns the value 0 if successful; otherwise the value -1 is returned and the global
variable errno is set to indicate the error.
The -std option is valid only for manual page sections 2 and 3. Currently, this macro does nothing if used with‐
out the -std flag.
Exit Status
The ‘.Ex’ macro generates text for use in the “Diagnostics” section.
Usage: .Ex [-std] [⟨utility⟩ ...]
For example, ‘.Ex -std cat’ produces:
The cat utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
The -std option is valid only for manual page sections 1, 6 and 8. Currently, this macro does nothing if used
without the -std flag.
Interactive Commands
The ‘.Ic’ macro designates an interactive or internal command.
Usage: .Ic ⟨argument⟩ ...
.Ic :wq :wq
.Ic "do while {...}" do while {...}
.Ic setenv , unsetenv setenv, unsetenv
The default width is 12n.
Library Names
The ‘.Lb’ macro is used to specify the library where a particular function is compiled in.
Usage: .Lb ⟨argument⟩ ...
Available arguments to ‘.Lb’ and their results are:
libarchive Reading and Writing Streaming Archives Library (libarchive, -larchive)
libarm ARM Architecture Library (libarm, -larm)
libarm32 ARM32 Architecture Library (libarm32, -larm32)
libbluetooth Bluetooth Library (libbluetooth, -lbluetooth)
libbsm Basic Security Module Library (libbsm, -lbsm)
libc Standard C Library (libc, -lc)
libc_r Reentrant C Library (libc_r, -lc_r)
libcalendar Calendar Arithmetic Library (libcalendar, -lcalendar)
libcam Common Access Method User Library (libcam, -lcam)
libcdk Curses Development Kit Library (libcdk, -lcdk)
libcipher FreeSec Crypt Library (libcipher, -lcipher)
libcompat Compatibility Library (libcompat, -lcompat)
libcrypt Crypt Library (libcrypt, -lcrypt)
libcurses Curses Library (libcurses, -lcurses)
libdevinfo Device and Resource Information Utility Library (libdevinfo, -ldevinfo)
libdevstat Device Statistics Library (libdevstat, -ldevstat)
libdisk Interface to Slice and Partition Labels Library (libdisk, -ldisk)
libdwarf DWARF Access Library (libdwarf, -ldwarf)
libedit Command Line Editor Library (libedit, -ledit)
libelf ELF Access Library (libelf, -lelf)
libevent Event Notification Library (libevent, -levent)
libfetch File Transfer Library for URLs (libfetch, -lfetch)
libform Curses Form Library (libform, -lform)
libgeom Userland API Library for kernel GEOM subsystem (libgeom, -lgeom)
libgpib General-Purpose Instrument Bus (GPIB) library (libgpib, -lgpib)
libi386 i386 Architecture Library (libi386, -li386)
libintl Internationalized Message Handling Library (libintl, -lintl)
libipsec IPsec Policy Control Library (libipsec, -lipsec)
libipx IPX Address Conversion Support Library (libipx, -lipx)
libiscsi iSCSI protocol library (libiscsi, -liscsi)
libjail Jail Library (libjail, -ljail)
libkiconv Kernel side iconv library (libkiconv, -lkiconv)
libkse N:M Threading Library (libkse, -lkse)
libkvm Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm, -lkvm)
libm Math Library (libm, -lm)
libm68k m68k Architecture Library (libm68k, -lm68k)
libmagic Magic Number Recognition Library (libmagic, -lmagic)
libmd Message Digest (MD4, MD5, etc.) Support Library (libmd, -lmd)
libmemstat Kernel Memory Allocator Statistics Library (libmemstat, -lmemstat)
libmenu Curses Menu Library (libmenu, -lmenu)
libnetgraph Netgraph User Library (libnetgraph, -lnetgraph)
libnetpgp Netpgp signing, verification, encryption and decryption (libnetpgp, -lnetpgp)
libossaudio OSS Audio Emulation Library (libossaudio, -lossaudio)
libpam Pluggable Authentication Module Library (libpam, -lpam)
libpcap Packet Capture Library (libpcap, -lpcap)
libpci PCI Bus Access Library (libpci, -lpci)
libpmc Performance Counters Library (libpmc, -lpmc)
libposix POSIX Compatibility Library (libposix, -lposix)
libprop Property Container Object Library (libprop, -lprop)
libpthread POSIX Threads Library (libpthread, -lpthread)
libpuffs puffs Convenience Library (libpuffs, -lpuffs)
librefuse File System in Userspace Convenience Library (librefuse, -lrefuse)
libresolv DNS Resolver Library (libresolv, -lresolv)
librpcsec_gss RPC GSS-API Authentication Library (librpcsec_gss, -lrpcsec_gss)
librpcsvc RPC Service Library (librpcsvc, -lrpcsvc)
librt POSIX Real-time Library (librt, -lrt)
libsdp Bluetooth Service Discovery Protocol User Library (libsdp, -lsdp)
libssp Buffer Overflow Protection Library (libssp, -lssp)
libSystem System Library (libSystem, -lSystem)
libtermcap Termcap Access Library (libtermcap, -ltermcap)
libterminfo Terminal Information Library (libterminfo, -lterminfo)
libthr 1:1 Threading Library (libthr, -lthr)
libufs UFS File System Access Library (libufs, -lufs)
libugidfw File System Firewall Interface Library (libugidfw, -lugidfw)
libulog User Login Record Library (libulog, -lulog)
libusbhid USB Human Interface Devices Library (libusbhid, -lusbhid)
libutil System Utilities Library (libutil, -lutil)
libvgl Video Graphics Library (libvgl, -lvgl)
libx86_64 x86_64 Architecture Library (libx86_64, -lx86_64)
libz Compression Library (libz, -lz)
Site-specific additions might be found in the file mdoc.local; see section “Files” below.
In a section titled “Library”, ‘Lb’ causes a break before and after its arguments.
Literals
The ‘Li’ literal macro may be used for special characters, symbolic constants, and other syntactical items that
should be typed exactly as displayed.
Usage: .Li ⟨argument⟩ ...
.Li \en \n
.Li M1 M2 M3 ; M1 M2 M3;
.Li cntrl-D ) , cntrl-D),
.Li 1024 ... 1024 ...
The default width is 16n.
Names
The ‘Nm’ macro is used for the document title or page topic. Upon its first call, it has the peculiarity of re‐
membering its argument, which should always be the topic of the man page. When subsequently called without argu‐
ments, ‘Nm’ regurgitates this initial name for the sole purpose of making less work for the author. Use of ‘Nm’
is also appropriate when presenting a command synopsis for the topic of a man page in section 1, 6, or 8. Its
behavior changes when presented with arguments of various forms.
.Nm groff_mdoc groff_mdoc
.Nm groff_mdoc
.Nm \-mdoc -mdoc
.Nm foo ) ) , foo)),
.Nm : groff_mdoc:
By default, the topic is set in boldface to reflect its prime importance in the discussion. Cross references to
other man page topics should use ‘Xr’; including a second argument for the section number enables them to be hy‐
perlinked. By default, cross-referenced topics are set in italics to avoid cluttering the page with boldface.
The default width is 10n.
Options
The ‘.Op’ macro places option brackets around any remaining arguments on the command line, and places any trail‐
ing punctuation outside the brackets. The macros ‘.Oo’ and ‘.Oc’ (which produce an opening and a closing option
bracket, respectively) may be used across one or more lines or to specify the exact position of the closing
parenthesis.
Usage: .Op [⟨option⟩] ...
.Op []
.Op Fl k [-k]
.Op Fl k ) . [-k]).
.Op Fl k Ar kookfile [-k kookfile]
.Op Fl k Ar kookfile , [-k kookfile],
.Op Ar objfil Op Ar corfil [objfil [corfil]]
.Op Fl c Ar objfil Op Ar corfil , [-c objfil [corfil]],
.Op word1 word2 [word1 word2]
.Li .Op Oo Ao option Ac Oc ... .Op [⟨option⟩] ...
Here a typical example of the ‘.Oo’ and ‘.Oc’ macros:
.Oo
.Op Fl k Ar kilobytes
.Op Fl i Ar interval
.Op Fl c Ar count
.Oc
Produces:
[[-k kilobytes] [-i interval] [-c count]]
The default width values of ‘.Op’ and ‘.Oo’ are 14n and 10n, respectively.
Pathnames
The ‘.Pa’ macro formats file specifications. If called without arguments, ‘~’ (recognized by many shells) is
output, representing the user's home directory.
Usage: .Pa [⟨pathname⟩] ...
.Pa ~
.Pa /usr/share /usr/share
.Pa /tmp/fooXXXXX ) . /tmp/fooXXXXX).
The default width is 32n.
Standards
The ‘.St’ macro replaces standard abbreviations with their formal names.
Usage: .St ⟨abbreviation⟩ ...
Available pairs for “Abbreviation/Formal Name” are:
ANSI/ISO C
-ansiC ANSI X3.159-1989 (“ANSI C89”)
-ansiC-89 ANSI X3.159-1989 (“ANSI C89”)
-isoC ISO/IEC 9899:1990 (“ISO C90”)
-isoC-90 ISO/IEC 9899:1990 (“ISO C90”)
-isoC-99 ISO/IEC 9899:1999 (“ISO C99”)
-isoC-2011 ISO/IEC 9899:2011 (“ISO C11”)
POSIX Part 1: System API
-iso9945-1-90 ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990 (“POSIX.1”)
-iso9945-1-96 ISO/IEC 9945-1:1996 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1 IEEE Std 1003.1 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1-88 IEEE Std 1003.1-1988 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1-90 ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1-96 ISO/IEC 9945-1:1996 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1b-93 IEEE Std 1003.1b-1993 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1c-95 IEEE Std 1003.1c-1995 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1g-2000 IEEE Std 1003.1g-2000 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1i-95 IEEE Std 1003.1i-1995 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1-2001 IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1-2004 IEEE Std 1003.1-2004 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1-2008 IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”)
POSIX Part 2: Shell and Utilities
-iso9945-2-93 ISO/IEC 9945-2:1993 (“POSIX.2”)
-p1003.2 IEEE Std 1003.2 (“POSIX.2”)
-p1003.2-92 IEEE Std 1003.2-1992 (“POSIX.2”)
-p1003.2a-92 IEEE Std 1003.2a-1992 (“POSIX.2”)
X/Open
-susv1 Version 1 of the Single UNIX Specification (“SUSv1”)
-susv2 Version 2 of the Single UNIX Specification (“SUSv2”)
-susv3 Version 3 of the Single UNIX Specification (“SUSv3”)
-susv4 Version 4 of the Single UNIX Specification (“SUSv4”)
-svid4 System V Interface Definition, Fourth Edition (“SVID4”)
-xbd5 X/Open Base Definitions Issue 5 (“XBD5”)
-xcu5 X/Open Commands and Utilities Issue 5 (“XCU5”)
-xcurses4.2 X/Open Curses Issue 4, Version 2 (“XCURSES4.2”)
-xns5 X/Open Networking Services Issue 5 (“XNS5”)
-xns5.2 X/Open Networking Services Issue 5.2 (“XNS5.2”)
-xpg3 X/Open Portability Guide Issue 3 (“XPG3”)
-xpg4 X/Open Portability Guide Issue 4 (“XPG4”)
-xpg4.2 X/Open Portability Guide Issue 4, Version 2 (“XPG4.2”)
-xsh5 X/Open System Interfaces and Headers Issue 5 (“XSH5”)
Miscellaneous
-ieee754 IEEE Std 754-1985
-iso8601 ISO 8601
-iso8802-3 ISO/IEC 8802-3:1989
Variable Types
The ‘.Vt’ macro may be used whenever a type is referenced. In a section titled “Synopsis”, ‘Vt’ causes a break
(useful for old-style C variable declarations).
Usage: .Vt ⟨type⟩ ...
.Vt extern char *optarg ; extern char *optarg;
.Vt FILE * FILE *
Variables
Generic variable reference.
Usage: .Va ⟨variable⟩ ...
.Va count count
.Va settimer , settimer,
.Va "int *prt" ) : int *prt):
.Va "char s" ] ) ) , char s])),
The default width is 12n.
Manual Page Cross References
The ‘.Xr’ macro expects the first argument to be a manual page name. The optional second argument, if a string
(defining the manual section), is put into parentheses.
Usage: .Xr ⟨man page name⟩ [⟨section⟩] ...
.Xr mdoc mdoc
.Xr mdoc , mdoc,
.Xr mdoc 7 mdoc(7)
.Xr xinit 1x ; xinit(1x);
The default width is 10n.
General text domain
AT&T Macro
Usage: .At [⟨version⟩] ...
.At AT&T UNIX
.At v6 . Version 6 AT&T UNIX.
The following values for ⟨version⟩ are possible:
32v, v1, v2, v3, v4, v5, v6, v7, III, V, V.1, V.2, V.3, V.4
BSD Macro
Usage: .Bx {-alpha | -beta | -devel} ...
.Bx [⟨version⟩ [⟨release⟩]] ...
.Bx BSD
.Bx 4.3 . 4.3BSD.
.Bx -devel BSD (currently under development)
⟨version⟩ will be prepended to the string ‘BSD’. The following values for ⟨release⟩ are possible:
Reno, reno, Tahoe, tahoe, Lite, lite, Lite2, lite2
NetBSD Macro
Usage: .Nx [⟨version⟩] ...
.Nx NetBSD
.Nx 1.4 . NetBSD 1.4.
For possible values of ⟨version⟩ see the description of the ‘.Os’ command above in section “Title macros”.
FreeBSD Macro
Usage: .Fx [⟨version⟩] ...
.Fx FreeBSD
.Fx 2.2 . FreeBSD 2.2.
For possible values of ⟨version⟩ see the description of the ‘.Os’ command above in section “Title macros”.
DragonFly Macro
Usage: .Dx [⟨version⟩] ...
.Dx DragonFly
.Dx 1.4 . DragonFly 1.4.
For possible values of ⟨version⟩ see the description of the ‘.Os’ command above in section “Title macros”.
OpenBSD Macro
Usage: .Ox [⟨version⟩] ...
.Ox 1.0 OpenBSD 1.0
BSD/OS Macro
Usage: .Bsx [⟨version⟩] ...
.Bsx 1.0 BSD/OS 1.0
Unix Macro
Usage: .Ux ...
.Ux Unix
Emphasis Macro
Text may be stressed or emphasized with the ‘.Em’ macro. The usual font for emphasis is italic.
Usage: .Em ⟨argument⟩ ...
.Em does not does not
.Em exceed 1024 . exceed 1024.
.Em vide infra ) ) , vide infra)),
The default width is 10n.
Font Mode
The ‘.Bf’ font mode must be ended with the ‘.Ef’ macro (the latter takes no arguments). Font modes may be nested
within other font modes.
‘.Bf’ has the following syntax:
.Bf ⟨font mode⟩
⟨font mode⟩ must be one of the following three types:
Em | -emphasis Same as if the ‘.Em’ macro was used for the entire block of text.
Li | -literal Same as if the ‘.Li’ macro was used for the entire block of text.
Sy | -symbolic Same as if the ‘.Sy’ macro was used for the entire block of text.
Both macros are neither callable nor parsed.
Enclosure and Quoting Macros
The concept of enclosure is similar to quoting. The object being to enclose one or more strings between a pair
of characters like quotes or parentheses. The terms quoting and enclosure are used interchangeably throughout
this document. Most of the one-line enclosure macros end in small letter ‘q’ to give a hint of quoting, but
there are a few irregularities. For each enclosure macro, there is a pair of opening and closing macros that end
with the lowercase letters ‘o’ and ‘c’ respectively.
Quote Open Close Function Result
.Aq .Ao .Ac Angle Bracket Enclosure <string>
.Bq .Bo .Bc Bracket Enclosure [string]
.Brq .Bro .Brc Brace Enclosure {string}
.Dq .Do .Dc Double Quote “string”
.Eq .Eo .Ec Enclose String (in XY) XstringY
.Pq .Po .Pc Parenthesis Enclosure (string)
.Ql Quoted Literal “string” or string
.Qq .Qo .Qc Straight Double Quote "string"
.Sq .So .Sc Single Quote ‘string’
All macros ending with ‘q’ and ‘o’ have a default width value of 12n.
.Eo, .Ec These macros expect the first argument to be the opening and closing strings, respectively.
.Es, .En To work around the nine-argument limit in the original troff program, mdoc supports two other macros
that are now obsolete. ‘.Es’ uses its first and second parameters as opening and closing marks which
are then used to enclose the arguments of ‘.En’. The default width value is 12n for both macros.
.Eq The first and second arguments of this macro are the opening and closing strings respectively, followed
by the arguments to be enclosed.
.Ql The quoted literal macro behaves differently in troff and nroff modes. If formatted with nroff(1), a
quoted literal is always quoted. If formatted with troff, an item is only quoted if the width of the
item is less than three constant-width characters. This is to make short strings more visible where
the font change to literal (constant-width) is less noticeable.
The default width is 16n.
.Pf The prefix macro suppresses the whitespace between its first and second argument:
.Pf ( Fa name2 (name2
The default width is 12n.
The ‘.Ns’ macro (see below) performs the analogous suffix function.
.Ap The ‘.Ap’ macro inserts an apostrophe and exits any special text modes, continuing in ‘.No’ mode.
Examples of quoting:
.Aq ⟨⟩
.Aq Pa ctype.h ) , ⟨ctype.h⟩),
.Bq []
.Bq Em Greek , French . [Greek, French].
.Dq “”
.Dq string abc . “string abc”.
.Dq '\[ha][A-Z]' “'^[A-Z]'”
.Ql man mdoc ‘man mdoc’
.Qq ""
.Qq string ) , "string"),
.Qq string Ns ), "string),"
.Sq ‘’
.Sq string ‘string’
.Em or Ap ing or'ing
For a good example of nested enclosure macros, see the ‘.Op’ option macro. It was created from the same underly‐
ing enclosure macros as those presented in the list above. The ‘.Xo’ and ‘.Xc’ extended argument list macros are
discussed below.
Normal text macro
‘No’ formats subsequent argument(s) normally, ending the effect of ‘Em’ and similar. Parsing is not suppressed,
so you must prefix words like ‘No’ with ‘\&’ to avoid their interpretation as mdoc macros.
Usage: .No argument ...
.Em Use caution No here . → Use caution here.
.Em No dogs allowed . → No dogs allowed.
.Em \&No dogs allowed . → No dogs allowed.
The default width is 12n.
No-Space Macro
The ‘.Ns’ macro suppresses insertion of a space between the current position and its first parameter. For exam‐
ple, it is useful for old style argument lists where there is no space between the flag and argument:
Usage: ... ⟨argument⟩ Ns [⟨argument⟩] ...
.Ns ⟨argument⟩ ...
.Op Fl I Ns Ar directory [-Idirectory]
Note: The ‘.Ns’ macro always invokes the ‘.No’ macro after eliminating the space unless another macro name fol‐
lows it. If used as a command (i.e., the second form above in the ‘Usage’ line), ‘.Ns’ is identical to ‘.No’.
(Sub)section cross references
Use the ‘.Sx’ macro to cite a (sub)section heading within the given document.
Usage: .Sx ⟨section-reference⟩ ...
.Sx Files → “Files”
The default width is 16n.
Symbolics
The symbolic emphasis macro is generally a boldface macro in either the symbolic sense or the traditional English
usage.
Usage: .Sy ⟨symbol⟩ ...
.Sy Important Notice → Important Notice
The default width is 6n.
Mathematical Symbols
Use this macro for mathematical symbols and similar things.
Usage: .Ms ⟨math symbol⟩ ...
.Ms sigma → sigma
The default width is 6n.
References and Citations
The following macros make a modest attempt to handle references. At best, the macros make it convenient to manu‐
ally drop in a subset of refer(1) style references.
.Rs Reference start (does not take arguments). In a section titled “See also”, it causes a break and
begins collection of reference information until the reference end macro is read.
.Re Reference end (does not take arguments). The reference is printed.
.%A Reference author name; one name per invocation.
.%B Book title.
.%C City/place.
.%D Date.
.%I Issuer/publisher name.
.%J Journal name.
.%N Issue number.
.%O Optional information.
.%P Page number.
.%Q Corporate or foreign author.
.%R Report name.
.%T Title of article.
.%U Optional hypertext reference.
.%V Volume.
Macros beginning with ‘%’ are not callable but accept multiple arguments in the usual way. Only the ‘.Tn’ macro
is handled properly as a parameter; other macros will cause strange output. ‘.%B’ and ‘.%T’ can be used outside
of the ‘.Rs/.Re’ environment.
Example:
.Rs
.%A "Matthew Bar"
.%A "John Foo"
.%T "Implementation Notes on foobar(1)"
.%R "Technical Report ABC-DE-12-345"
.%Q "Drofnats College"
.%C "Nowhere"
.%D "April 1991"
.Re
produces
Matthew Bar and John Foo, Implementation Notes on foobar(1), Technical Report ABC-DE-12-345, Drofnats
College, Nowhere, April 1991.
Trade Names or Acronyms
The trade name macro prints its arguments at a smaller type size. It is intended to imitate a small caps fonts
for fully capitalized acronyms.
Usage: .Tn ⟨symbol⟩ ...
.Tn DEC DEC
.Tn ASCII ASCII
The default width is 10n.
Extended Arguments
The .Xo and .Xc macros allow one to extend an argument list on a macro boundary for the ‘.It’ macro (see below).
Note that .Xo and .Xc are implemented similarly to all other macros opening and closing an enclosure (without in‐
serting characters, of course). This means that the following is true for those macros also.
Here is an example of ‘.Xo’ using the space mode macro to turn spacing off:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
.Sm off
.It Xo Sy I Ar operation
.No \en Ar count No \en
.Xc
.Sm on
.Ed
produces
Ioperation\ncount\n
Another one:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
.Sm off
.It Cm S No / Ar old_pattern Xo
.No / Ar new_pattern
.No / Op Cm g
.Xc
.Sm on
.Ed
produces
S/old_pattern/new_pattern/[g]
Another example of ‘.Xo’ and enclosure macros: Test the value of a variable.
.Bd -literal -offset indent
.It Xo
.Ic .ifndef
.Oo \&! Oc Ns Ar variable Oo
.Ar operator variable No ...
.Oc Xc
.Ed
produces
.ifndef [!]variable [operator variable ...]
Page structure domain
Section headings
The following ‘.Sh’ section heading macros are required in every man page. The remaining section headings are
recommended at the discretion of the author writing the manual page. The ‘.Sh’ macro is parsed but not generally
callable. It can be used as an argument in a call to ‘.Sh’ only; it then reactivates the default font for ‘.Sh’.
The default width is 8n.
.Sh Name The ‘.Sh Name’ macro is mandatory. If not specified, headers, footers, and page layout de‐
faults will not be set and things will be rather unpleasant. The Name section consists of at
least three items. The first is the ‘.Nm’ name macro naming the subject of the man page. The
second is the name description macro, ‘.Nd’, which separates the subject name from the third
item, which is the description. The description should be the most terse and lucid possible,
as the space available is small.
‘.Nd’ first prints ‘-’, then all its arguments.
.Sh Library This section is for section two and three function calls. It should consist of a single ‘.Lb’
macro call; see “Library Names”.
.Sh Synopsis The “Synopsis” section describes the typical usage of the subject of a man page. The macros
required are either ‘.Nm’, ‘.Cd’, or ‘.Fn’ (and possibly ‘.Fo’, ‘.Fc’, ‘.Fd’, and ‘.Ft’). The
function name macro ‘.Fn’ is required for manual page sections 2 and 3; the command and gen‐
eral name macro ‘.Nm’ is required for sections 1, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Section 4 manuals require a
‘.Nm’, ‘.Fd’ or a ‘.Cd’ configuration device usage macro. Several other macros may be neces‐
sary to produce the synopsis line as shown below:
cat [-benstuv] [-] file ...
The following macros were used:
.Nm cat
.Op Fl benstuv
.Op Fl
.Ar file No ...
.Sh Description In most cases the first text in the “Description” section is a brief paragraph on the command,
function or file, followed by a lexical list of options and respective explanations. To cre‐
ate such a list, the ‘.Bl’ (begin list), ‘.It’ (list item) and ‘.El’ (end list) macros are
used (see “Lists and Columns” below).
.Sh Implementation notes
Implementation specific information should be placed here.
.Sh Return values Sections 2, 3 and 9 function return values should go here. The ‘.Rv’ macro may be used to
generate text for use in the “Return values” section for most section 2 and 3 library func‐
tions; see “Return Values”.
The following ‘.Sh’ section headings are part of the preferred manual page layout and must be used appropriately
to maintain consistency. They are listed in the order in which they would be used.
.Sh Environment The Environment section should reveal any related environment variables and clues to their be‐
havior and/or usage.
.Sh Files Files which are used or created by the man page subject should be listed via the ‘.Pa’ macro
in the “Files” section.
.Sh Examples There are several ways to create examples. See subsection “Examples and Displays” below for
details.
.Sh Diagnostics Diagnostic messages from a command should be placed in this section. The ‘.Ex’ macro may be
used to generate text for use in the “Diagnostics” section for most section 1, 6 and 8 com‐
mands; see “Exit Status”.
.Sh Compatibility Known compatibility issues (e.g. deprecated options or parameters) should be listed here.
.Sh Errors Specific error handling, especially from library functions (man page sections 2, 3, and 9)
should go here. The ‘.Er’ macro is used to specify an error (errno).
.Sh See also References to other material on the man page topic and cross references to other relevant man
pages should be placed in the “See also” section. Cross references are specified using the
‘.Xr’ macro. Currently refer(1) style references are not accommodated.
It is recommended that the cross references be sorted by section number, then alphabetically
by name within each section, then separated by commas. Example:
ls(1), ps(1), group(5), passwd(5)
.Sh Standards If the command, library function, or file adheres to a specific implementation such as IEEE
Std 1003.2 (“POSIX.2”) or ANSI X3.159-1989 (“ANSI C89”) this should be noted here. If the
command does not adhere to any standard, its history should be noted in the History section.
.Sh History Any command which does not adhere to any specific standards should be outlined historically in
this section.
.Sh Authors Credits should be placed here. Use the ‘.An’ macro for names and the ‘.Aq’ macro for email
addresses within optional contact information. Explicitly indicate whether the person au‐
thored the initial manual page or the software or whatever the person is being credited for.
.Sh Bugs Blatant problems with the topic go here.
User-specified ‘.Sh’ sections may be added; for example, this section was set with:
.Sh "Page structure domain"
Subsection headings
Subsection headings have exactly the same syntax as section headings: ‘.Ss’ is parsed but not generally callable.
It can be used as an argument in a call to ‘.Ss’ only; it then reactivates the default font for ‘.Ss’.
The default width is 8n.
Paragraphs and Line Spacing
.Pp The ‘.Pp’ paragraph command may be used to specify a line space where necessary. The macro is not necessary
after a ‘.Sh’ or ‘.Ss’ macro or before a ‘.Bl’ or ‘.Bd’ macro (which both assert a vertical distance unless
the -compact flag is given).
The macro is neither callable nor parsed and takes no arguments; an alternative name is ‘.Lp’.
Keeps
The only keep that is implemented at this time is for words. The macros are ‘.Bk’ (begin keep) and ‘.Ek’ (end
keep). The only option that ‘.Bk’ currently accepts is -words (also the default); this prevents breaks in the
middle of options. In the example for make command-line arguments (see “What's in a Name”), the keep prevents
nroff from placing the flag and the argument on separate lines.
Neither macro is callable or parsed.
More work needs to be done on the keep macros; specifically, a -line option should be added.
Examples and Displays
There are seven types of displays.
.D1 (This is D-one.) Display one line of indented text. This macro is parsed but not callable.
-ldghfstru
The above was produced by: .D1 Fl ldghfstru.
.Dl (This is D-ell.) Display one line of indented literal text. The ‘.Dl’ example macro has been used through‐
out this file. It allows the indentation (display) of one line of text. Its default font is set to con‐
stant width (literal). ‘.Dl’ is parsed but not callable.
% ls -ldg /usr/local/bin
The above was produced by: .Dl % ls \-ldg /usr/local/bin.
.Bd Begin display. The ‘.Bd’ display must be ended with the ‘.Ed’ macro. It has the following syntax:
.Bd {-literal | -filled | -unfilled | -ragged | -centered} [-offset ⟨string⟩] [-file ⟨file name⟩]
[-compact]
-ragged Fill, but do not adjust the right margin (only left-justify).
-centered Center lines between the current left and right margin. Note that each single line is
centered.
-unfilled Do not fill; break lines where their input lines are broken. This can produce overlong
lines without warning messages.
-filled Display a filled block. The block of text is formatted (i.e., the text is justified on
both the left and right side).
-literal Display block with literal font (usually fixed-width). Useful for source code or simple
tabbed or spaced text.
-file ⟨file name⟩ The file whose name follows the -file flag is read and displayed before any data enclosed
with ‘.Bd’ and ‘.Ed’, using the selected display type. Any troff/mdoc commands in the
file will be processed.
-offset ⟨string⟩ If -offset is specified with one of the following strings, the string is interpreted to
indicate the level of indentation for the forthcoming block of text:
left Align block on the current left margin; this is the default mode of ‘.Bd’.
center Supposedly center the block. At this time unfortunately, the block merely
gets left aligned about an imaginary center margin.
indent Indent by one default indent value or tab. The default indent value is also
used for the ‘.D1’ and ‘.Dl’ macros, so one is guaranteed the two types of
displays will line up. The indentation value is normally set to 6n or about
two thirds of an inch (six constant width characters).
indent-two Indent two times the default indent value.
right This left aligns the block about two inches from the right side of the page.
This macro needs work and perhaps may never do the right thing within troff.
If ⟨string⟩ is a valid numeric expression instead (with a scaling indicator other than
‘u’), use that value for indentation. The most useful scaling indicators are ‘m’ and
‘n’, specifying the so-called Em and En square. This is approximately the width of the
letters ‘m’ and ‘n’ respectively of the current font (for nroff output, both scaling in‐
dicators give the same values). If ⟨string⟩ isn't a numeric expression, it is tested
whether it is an mdoc macro name, and the default offset value associated with this macro
is used. Finally, if all tests fail, the width of ⟨string⟩ (typeset with a fixed-width
font) is taken as the offset.
-compact Suppress insertion of vertical space before begin of display.
.Ed End display (takes no arguments).
Lists and Columns
There are several types of lists which may be initiated with the ‘.Bl’ begin-list macro. Items within the list
are specified with the ‘.It’ item macro, and each list must end with the ‘.El’ macro. Lists may be nested within
themselves and within displays. The use of columns inside of lists or lists inside of columns is untested.
In addition, several list attributes may be specified such as the width of a tag, the list offset, and compact‐
ness (blank lines between items allowed or disallowed). Most of this document has been formatted with a tag
style list (-tag).
It has the following syntax forms:
.Bl {-hang | -ohang | -tag | -diag | -inset} [-width ⟨string⟩] [-offset ⟨string⟩] [-compact]
.Bl -column [-offset ⟨string⟩] ⟨string1⟩ ⟨string2⟩ ...
.Bl {-item | -enum [-nested] | -bullet | -hyphen | -dash} [-offset ⟨string⟩] [-compact]
And now a detailed description of the list types.
-bullet A bullet list.
.Bl -bullet -offset indent -compact
.It
Bullet one goes here.
.It
Bullet two here.
.El
Produces:
• Bullet one goes here.
• Bullet two here.
-dash (or -hyphen)
A dash list.
.Bl -dash -offset indent -compact
.It
Dash one goes here.
.It
Dash two here.
.El
Produces:
- Dash one goes here.
- Dash two here.
-enum An enumerated list.
.Bl -enum -offset indent -compact
.It
Item one goes here.
.It
And item two here.
.El
The result:
1. Item one goes here.
2. And item two here.
If you want to nest enumerated lists, use the -nested flag (starting with the second-level list):
.Bl -enum -offset indent -compact
.It
Item one goes here
.Bl -enum -nested -compact
.It
Item two goes here.
.It
And item three here.
.El
.It
And item four here.
.El
Result:
1. Item one goes here.
1.1. Item two goes here.
1.2. And item three here.
2. And item four here.
-item A list of type -item without list markers.
.Bl -item -offset indent
.It
Item one goes here.
Item one goes here.
Item one goes here.
.It
Item two here.
Item two here.
Item two here.
.El
Produces:
Item one goes here. Item one goes here. Item one goes here.
Item two here. Item two here. Item two here.
-tag A list with tags. Use -width to specify the tag width.
SL sleep time of the process (seconds blocked)
PAGEIN
number of disk I/O operations resulting from references by the process to pages not loaded
in core.
UID numerical user-id of process owner
PPID numerical id of parent of process priority (non-positive when in non-interruptible wait)
The raw text:
.Bl -tag -width "PPID" -compact -offset indent
.It SL
sleep time of the process (seconds blocked)
.It PAGEIN
number of disk I/O operations resulting from references
by the process to pages not loaded in core.
.It UID
numerical user-id of process owner
.It PPID
numerical id of parent of process priority
(non-positive when in non-interruptible wait)
.El
-diag Diag lists create section four diagnostic lists and are similar to inset lists except callable macros
are ignored. The -width flag is not meaningful in this context.
Example:
.Bl -diag
.It You can't use Sy here.
The message says all.
.El
produces
You can't use Sy here. The message says all.
-hang A list with hanging tags.
Hanged labels appear similar to tagged lists when the label is smaller than the label width.
Longer hanged list labels blend into the paragraph unlike tagged paragraph labels.
And the unformatted text which created it:
.Bl -hang -offset indent
.It Em Hanged
labels appear similar to tagged lists when the
label is smaller than the label width.
.It Em Longer hanged list labels
blend into the paragraph unlike
tagged paragraph labels.
.El
-ohang Lists with overhanging tags do not use indentation for the items; tags are written to a separate line.
SL
sleep time of the process (seconds blocked)
PAGEIN
number of disk I/O operations resulting from references by the process to pages not loaded in
core.
UID
numerical user-id of process owner
PPID
numerical id of parent of process priority (non-positive when in non-interruptible wait)
The raw text:
.Bl -ohang -offset indent
.It Sy SL
sleep time of the process (seconds blocked)
.It Sy PAGEIN
number of disk I/O operations resulting from references
by the process to pages not loaded in core.
.It Sy UID
numerical user-id of process owner
.It Sy PPID
numerical id of parent of process priority
(non-positive when in non-interruptible wait)
.El
-inset Here is an example of inset labels:
Tag The tagged list (also called a tagged paragraph) is the most common type of list used in the
Berkeley manuals. Use a -width attribute as described below.
Diag Diag lists create section four diagnostic lists and are similar to inset lists except
callable macros are ignored.
Hang Hanged labels are a matter of taste.
Ohang Overhanging labels are nice when space is constrained.
Inset Inset labels are useful for controlling blocks of paragraphs and are valuable for converting
mdoc manuals to other formats.
Here is the source text which produced the above example:
.Bl -inset -offset indent
.It Em Tag
The tagged list (also called a tagged paragraph)
is the most common type of list used in the
Berkeley manuals.
.It Em Diag
Diag lists create section four diagnostic lists
and are similar to inset lists except callable
macros are ignored.
.It Em Hang
Hanged labels are a matter of taste.
.It Em Ohang
Overhanging labels are nice when space is constrained.
.It Em Inset
Inset labels are useful for controlling blocks of
paragraphs and are valuable for converting
.Xr mdoc
manuals to other formats.
.El
-column This list type generates multiple columns. The number of columns and the width of each column is deter‐
mined by the arguments to the -column list, ⟨string1⟩, ⟨string2⟩, etc. If ⟨stringN⟩ starts with a ‘.’
(dot) immediately followed by a valid mdoc macro name, interpret ⟨stringN⟩ and use the width of the re‐
sult. Otherwise, the width of ⟨stringN⟩ (typeset with a fixed-width font) is taken as the Nth column
width.
Each ‘.It’ argument is parsed to make a row, each column within the row is a separate argument separated
by a tab or the ‘.Ta’ macro.
The table:
String Nroff Troff
<= <= ≤
>= >= ≥
was produced by:
.Bl -column -offset indent ".Sy String" ".Sy Nroff" ".Sy Troff"
.It Sy String Ta Sy Nroff Ta Sy Troff
.It Li <= Ta <= Ta \*(<=
.It Li >= Ta >= Ta \*(>=
.El
Don't abuse this list type! For more complicated cases it might be far better and easier to use tbl(1),
the table preprocessor.
Other keywords:
-width ⟨string⟩ If ⟨string⟩ starts with a ‘.’ (dot) immediately followed by a valid mdoc macro name, interpret
⟨string⟩ and use the width of the result. Almost all lists in this document use this option.
Example:
.Bl -tag -width ".Fl test Ao Ar string Ac"
.It Fl test Ao Ar string Ac
This is a longer sentence to show how the
.Fl width
flag works in combination with a tag list.
.El
gives:
-test ⟨string⟩ This is a longer sentence to show how the -width flag works in combination with
a tag list.
(Note that the current state of mdoc is saved before ⟨string⟩ is interpreted; afterwards, all
variables are restored again. However, boxes (used for enclosures) can't be saved in GNU
troff(1); as a consequence, arguments must always be balanced to avoid nasty errors. For exam‐
ple, do not write ‘.Ao Ar string’ but ‘.Ao Ar string Xc’ instead if you really need only an
opening angle bracket.)
Otherwise, if ⟨string⟩ is a valid numeric expression (with a scaling indicator other than ‘u’),
use that value for indentation. The most useful scaling indicators are ‘m’ and ‘n’, specifying
the so-called Em and En square. This is approximately the width of the letters ‘m’ and ‘n’ re‐
spectively of the current font (for nroff output, both scaling indicators give the same val‐
ues). If ⟨string⟩ isn't a numeric expression, it is tested whether it is an mdoc macro name,
and the default width value associated with this macro is used. Finally, if all tests fail,
the width of ⟨string⟩ (typeset with a fixed-width font) is taken as the width.
If a width is not specified for the tag list type, ‘6n’ is used.
-offset ⟨string⟩ If ⟨string⟩ is indent, a default indent value (normally set to 6n, similar to the value used in
‘.Dl’ or ‘.Bd’) is used. If ⟨string⟩ is a valid numeric expression instead (with a scaling
indicator other than ‘u’), use that value for indentation. The most useful scaling indicators
are ‘m’ and ‘n’, specifying the so-called Em and En square. This is approximately the width of
the letters ‘m’ and ‘n’ respectively of the current font (for nroff output, both scaling indi‐
cators give the same values). If ⟨string⟩ isn't a numeric expression, it is tested whether it
is an mdoc macro name, and the default offset value associated with this macro is used. Fi‐
nally, if all tests fail, the width of ⟨string⟩ (typeset with a fixed-width font) is taken as
the offset.
-compact Suppress insertion of vertical space before the list and between list items.
Miscellaneous macros
A double handful of macros fit only uncomfortably into one of the above sections. Of these, we couldn't find at‐
tested examples for ‘Me’ or ‘Ot’. They are documented here for completeness—if you know their proper usage,
please send a mail to groff@gnu.org and include a specimen with its provenance.
.Bt formats boilerplate text.
.Bt → is currently in beta test.
It is neither callable nor parsed and takes no arguments. Its default width is 6n.
.Fr is an obsolete means of specifying a function return value.
Usage: .Fr return-value ...
‘Fr’ allows a break right before the return value (usually a single digit) which is bad typographical behav‐
iour. Instead, set the return value with the rest of the code, using ‘\~’ to tie the return value to the
previous word.
Its default width is 12n.
.Hf Inlines the contents of a (header) file into the document.
Usage: .Hf file
It first prints ‘File:’ followed by the file name, then the contents of file. It is neither callable nor
parsed.
.Lk Embed hyperlink.
Usage: .Lk uri [link-text]
Its default width is 6n.
.Me Usage unknown. The mdoc sources describe it as a macro for “menu entries”.
Its default width is 6n.
.Mt Embed email address.
Usage: .Mt email-address
Its default width is 6n.
.Ot Usage unknown. The mdoc sources describe it as “old function type (fortran)”.
.Sm Manipulate or toggle argument-spacing mode.
Usage: .Sm [on | off] ...
If argument-spacing mode is off, no spaces between macro arguments are inserted. If called without a para‐
meter (or if the next parameter is neither ‘on’ nor ‘off’), ‘Sm’ toggles argument-spacing mode.
Its default width is 8n.
.Ud formats boilerplate text.
.Ud → currently under development.
It is neither callable nor parsed and takes no arguments. Its default width is 8n.
Predefined strings
The following strings are predefined for compatibility with legacy mdoc documents. Contemporary ones should use
the alternatives shown in the “Prefer” column below. See groff_char(7) for a full discussion of these special
character escape sequences.
String 7-bit 8-bit UCS Prefer Meaning
\*(<= <= <= ≤ \(<= less than or equal to
\*(>= >= >= ≥ \(>= greater than or equal to
\*(Rq " " ” \(rq right double quote
\*(Lq " " “ \(lq left double quote
\*(ua ^ ^ ↑ \(ua vertical arrow up
\*(aa ' ´ ´ \(aa acute accent
\*(ga ` ` ` \(ga grave accent
\*(q " " " \(dq neutral double quote
\*(Pi pi pi π \(*p lowercase pi
\*(Ne != != ≠ \(!= not equals
\*(Le <= <= ≤ \(<= less than or equal to
\*(Ge >= >= ≥ \(>= greater than or equal to
\*(Lt < < < < less than
\*(Gt > > > > greater than
\*(Pm +- ± ± \(+- plus or minus
\*(If infinity infinity ∞ \(if infinity
\*(Am & & & & ampersand
\*(Na NaN NaN NaN NaN not a number
\*(Ba | | | | bar
Some column headings are shorthand for standardized character encodings; “7-bit” for ISO 646:1991 IRV (US-ASCII),
“8-bit” for ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) and IBM code page 1047, and “UCS” for ISO 10646 (Unicode character set). His‐
torically, mdoc configured the string definitions to fit the capabilities expected of the output device. Old
typesetters lacked directional double quotes, producing repeated directional single quotes ‘‘like this’’; early
versions of mdoc in fact defined the ‘Lq’ and ‘Rq’ strings this way. Nowadays, output drivers take on the re‐
sponsibility of glyph substitution, as they possess relevant knowledge of their available repertoires.
Diagnostics
The debugging macro ‘.Db’ offered by previous versions of mdoc is unavailable in GNU troff(1) since the latter
provides better facilities to check parameters; additionally, groff mdoc implements many error and warning mes‐
sages, making the package more robust and more verbose.
The remaining debugging macro is ‘.Rd’, which dumps the package's global register and string contents to the
standard error stream. A normal user will never need it.
Options
The following groff options set registers (with -r) and strings (with -d) recognized and used by the mdoc macro
package. To ensure rendering consistent with output device capabilities and reader preferences, man pages should
never manipulate them.
Setting string ‘AD’ configures the adjustment mode for most formatted text. Typical values are ‘b’ for adjust‐
ment to both margins (the default), or ‘l’ for left alignment (ragged right margin). Any valid argument to
groff's ‘ad’ request may be used. See groff(7) for less-common choices.
groff -Tutf8 -dAD=l -mdoc groff_mdoc.7 | less -R
Setting register ‘C’ to 1 numbers output pages consecutively, rather than resetting the page number to 1 (or the
value of register ‘P’) with each new mdoc document.
By default, the package inhibits page breaks, headers, and footers in the midst of the document text if it is be‐
ing displayed with a terminal device such as ‘latin1’ or ‘utf8’, to enable more efficient viewing of the page.
This behavior can be changed to format the page as if for 66-line Teletype output by setting the continuous ren‐
dering register ‘cR’ to zero while calling groff(1).
groff -Tlatin1 -rcR=0 -mdoc foo.man > foo.txt
On HTML devices, it cannot be disabled.
Section headings (defined with ‘.Sh’) and page titles in headers (defined with ‘.Dt’) can be presented in full
capitals by setting the registers ‘CS’ and ‘CT’, respectively, to 1. These transformations are off by default
because they discard case distinction information.
Setting register ‘D’ to 1 enables double-sided page layout, which is only distinct when not continuously render‐
ing. It places the page number at the bottom right on odd-numbered (recto) pages, and at the bottom left on
even-numbered (verso) pages, swapping places with the arguments to ‘.Os’.
groff -Tps -rD1 -mdoc foo.man > foo.ps
The value of the ‘FT’ register determines the footer's distance from the page bottom; this amount is always nega‐
tive and should specify a scaling unit. At one half-inch above this location, the page text is broken before
writing the footer. It is ignored if continuous rendering is enabled. The default is -0.5i.
The ‘HF’ string sets the font used for section and subsection headings; the default is ‘B’ (bold style of the de‐
fault family). Any valid argument to groff's ‘ft’ request may be used.
Normally, automatic hyphenation is enabled using a mode appropriate to the groff locale; see section “Localiza‐
tion“ of groff(7). It can be disabled by setting the ‘HY’ register to zero.
groff -Tutf8 -rHY=0 -mdoc foo.man | less -R
The paragraph and subsection heading indentation amounts can be changed by setting the registers ‘IN’ and ‘SN’.
groff -Tutf8 -rIN=5n -rSN=2n -mdoc foo.man | less -R
The default paragraph indentation is 7.2n on typesetters and 7n on terminals. The default subsection heading in‐
dentation amount is 3n; section headings are set with an indentation of zero.
The line and title lengths can be changed by setting the registers ‘LL’ and ‘LT’, respectively:
groff -Tutf8 -rLL=100n -rLT=100n -mdoc foo.man | less -R
If not set, both registers default to 78n for terminal devices and 6.5i otherwise.
Setting the ‘P’ register starts enumeration of pages at its value. The default is 1.
To change the document font size to 11p or 12p, set register ‘S’ accordingly:
groff -Tdvi -rS11 -mdoc foo.man > foo.dvi
Register ‘S’ is ignored when formatting for terminal devices.
Setting the ‘X’ register to a page number p numbers its successors as pa, pb, pc, and so forth. The register
tracking the suffixed page letter uses format ‘a’ (see the ‘af’ request in groff(7)).
Files
/BuggyBox/groff/1.23.0/any/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/andoc.tmac
This brief groff program detects whether the man or mdoc macro package is being used by a document and
loads the correct macro definitions, taking advantage of the fact that pages using them must call TH or
Dd, respectively, before any other macros. A user typing, for example,
groff -mandoc page.1
need not know which package the file page.1 uses. Multiple man pages, in either format, can be handled;
andoc.tmac reloads each macro package as necessary.
/BuggyBox/groff/1.23.0/any/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/doc.tmac
implements the bulk of the groff mdoc package and loads further components as needed from the mdoc subdi‐
rectory.
/BuggyBox/groff/1.23.0/any/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/mdoc.tmac
is a wrapper that loads doc.tmac.
/BuggyBox/groff/1.23.0/any/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/mdoc/doc-common
defines macros, registers, and strings concerned with the production of formatted output. It includes
strings of the form ‘doc-volume-ds-X’ and ‘doc-volume-as-X’ for manual section titles and architecture
identifiers, respectively, where X is an argument recognized by .Dt.
/BuggyBox/groff/1.23.0/any/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/mdoc/doc-nroff
defines parameters appropriate for rendering to terminal devices.
/BuggyBox/groff/1.23.0/any/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/mdoc/doc-ditroff
defines parameters appropriate for rendering to typesetter devices.
/BuggyBox/groff/1.23.0/any/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/mdoc/doc-syms
defines many strings and macros that interpolate formatted text, such as names of operating system re‐
leases, *BSD libraries, and standards documents. The string names are of the form ‘doc-str-O-V’,
‘doc-str-St--S-I’ (observe the double dashes), or ‘doc-str-Lb-L’, where O is one of the operating system
macros from section “General text domain” above, V is an encoding of an operating system release (some‐
times omitted along with the ‘-’ preceding it), S an identifier for a standards body or committee, I one
for an issue of a standard promulgated by S, and L a keyword identifying a *BSD library.
/BuggyBox/groff/1.23.0/any/share/groff/site-tmac/mdoc.local
This file houses local additions and customizations to the package. It can be empty.
See also
The mandoc: https://mandoc.bsd.lv/ project maintains an independent implementation of the mdoc language and a
renderer that directly parses its markup as well as that of man.
groff(1), man(1), troff(1), groff_man(7), mdoc(7)
Bugs
Section 3f has not been added to the header routines.
‘.Fn’ needs to have a check to prevent splitting up the line if its length is too short. Occasionally it sepa‐
rates the last parenthesis, and sometimes looks ridiculous if output lines are being filled.
The list and display macros do not do any keeps and certainly should be able to.
As of groff 1.23, ‘Tn’ no longer changes the type size; this functionality may return in the next release.
groff 1.23.0 2 July 2023 groff_mdoc(7)
Name
groff_mdoc — compose BSD-style manual (man) pages with GNU roff
Synopsis
groff -mdoc file ...
Description
The GNU implementation of the mdoc macro package is part of the groff(1) document formatting system. mdoc is a
structurally- and semantically-oriented package for writing Unix manual pages with troff(1). Its predecessor,
the man(7) package, primarily addressed page layout and presentational concerns, leaving the selection of fonts
and other typesetting details to the individual author. This discretion has led to divergent styling practices
among authors using it.
mdoc organizes its macros into domains. The page structure domain lays out the page and comprises titles, sec‐
tion headings, displays, and lists. The general text domain supplies macros to quote or style text, or to inter‐
polate common noun phrases. The manual domain offers semantic macros corresponding to the terminology used by
practitioners in discussion of Unix commands, routines, and files. Manual domain macros distinguish command-line
arguments and options, function names, function parameters, pathnames, variables, cross references to other man‐
ual pages, and so on. These terms are meaningful both to the author and the readers of a manual page. It is
hoped that the resulting increased consistency of the man page corpus will enable easier translation to future
documentation tools.
Throughout Unix documentation, a manual entry is referred to simply as a “man page”, regardless of its length,
without gendered implication, and irrespective of the macro package selected for its composition.
Getting started
The mdoc package attempts to simplify man page authorship and maintenance without requiring mastery of the roff
language. This document presents only essential facts about roff. For further background, including a discussion
of basic typographical concepts like “breaking”, “filling”, and “adjustment”, see roff(7). Specialized units of
measurement also arise, namely ens, vees, inches, and points, abbreviated “n”, “v”, “i”, and “p”, respectively;
see section “Measurements” of groff(7).
For brief examples, we employ an arrow notation illustrating a transformation of input on the left to rendered
output on the right. Consider the .Dq macro, which double-quotes its arguments.
.Dq man page → “man page”
Usage
An mdoc macro is called by placing the roff control character, ‘.’ (dot) at the beginning of a line followed by
its name. In this document, we often discuss a macro name with this leading dot to identify it clearly, but the
dot is not part of its name. Space or tab characters can separate the dot from the macro name. Arguments may
follow, separated from the macro name and each other by spaces, but not tabs. The dot at the beginning of the
line prepares the formatter to expect a macro name. A dot followed immediately by a newline is ignored; this is
called the empty request. To begin an input line with a dot (or a neutral apostrophe ‘'’) in some context other
than a macro call, precede it with the ‘\&’ escape sequence; this is a dummy character, not formatted for output.
The backslash is the roff escape character; it can appear anywhere and it always followed by at least one more
character. If followed by a newline, the backslash escapes the input line break; you can thus keep input lines
to a reasonable length without affecting their interpretation.
Macros in GNU troff accept an unlimited number of arguments, in contrast to other troffs that often can't handle
more than nine. In limited cases, arguments may be continued or extended on the next input line without resort
to the ‘\newline’ escape sequence; see subsection “Extended arguments” below. Neutral double quotes " can be
used to group multiple words into an argument; see subsection “Passing space characters in an argument” below.
Most of mdoc's general text and manual domain macros parse their argument lists for callable macro names. This
means that an argument in the list matching a general text or manual domain macro name (and defined to be
callable) will be called with the remaining arguments when it is encountered. In such cases, the argument, al‐
though the name of a macro, is not preceded by a dot. Macro calls can thus be nested. This approach to macro
argument processing is a unique characteristic of the mdoc package, not a general feature of roff syntax.
For example, the option macro, .Op, may call the flag and argument macros, .Fl and .Ar, to specify an optional
flag with an argument.
.Op Fl s Ar bytes → [-s bytes]
To prevent a word from being interpreted as a macro name, precede it with the dummy character.
.Op \&Fl s \&Ar bytes → [Fl s Ar bytes]
In this document, macros whose argument lists are parsed for callable arguments are referred to as parsed, and
those that may be called from an argument list are referred to as callable. This usage is a technical faux pas,
since all mdoc macros are in fact interpreted (unless prevented with ‘\&’), but as it is cumbersome to constantly
refer to macros as “being able to call other macros”, we employ the term “parsed” instead. Except where explic‐
itly stated, all mdoc macros are parsed and callable.
In the following, we term an mdoc macro that starts a line (with a leading dot) a command if a distinction from
those appearing as arguments of other macros is necessary.
Passing space characters in an argument
Sometimes it is desirable to give a macro an argument containing one or more space characters, for instance to
specify a particular arrangement of arguments demanded by the macro. Additionally, quoting multi-word arguments
that are to be treated the same makes mdoc work faster; macros that parse arguments do so once (at most) for
each. For example, the function command .Fn expects its first argument to be the name of a function and any re‐
maining arguments to be function parameters. Because C language standards mandate the inclusion of types and
identifiers in the parameter lists of function definitions, each ‘Fn’ parameter after the first will be at least
two words in length, as in “int foo”.
There are a few ways to embed a space in a macro argument. One is to use the unadjustable space escape sequence
\space. The formatter treats this escape sequence as if it were any other printable character, and will not
break a line there as it would a word space when the output line is full. This method is useful for macro argu‐
ments that are not expected to straddle an output line boundary, but has a drawback: this space does not adjust
as others do when the output line is formatted. An alternative is to use the unbreakable space escape sequence,
‘\~’, which cannot break but does adjust. This groff extension is widely but not perfectly portable. Another
method is to enclose the string in double quotes.
.Fn fetch char\ *str → fetch(char *str)
.Fn fetch char\~*str → fetch(char *str)
.Fn fetch "char *str" → fetch(char *str)
If the ‘\’ before the space in the first example or the double quotes in the third example were omitted, ‘.Fn’
would see three arguments, and the result would contain an undesired comma.
.Fn fetch char *str → fetch(char, *str)
Trailing space characters
It is wise to remove trailing spaces from the ends of input lines. Should the need arise to put a formattable
space at the end of a line, do so with the unadjustable or unbreakable space escape sequences.
Formatting the backslash glyph
When you need the roff escape character ‘\’ to appear in the output, use ‘\e’ or ‘\(rs’ instead. Technically,
‘\e’ formats the current escape character; it works reliably as long as no roff request is used to change it,
which should never happen in man pages. ‘\(rs’ is a groff special character escape sequence that explicitly for‐
mats the “reverse solidus” (backslash) glyph.
Other possible pitfalls
groff mdoc warns when an empty input line is found outside of a display, a topic presented in subsection
“Examples and displays” below. Use empty requests to space the source document for maintenance.
Leading spaces cause a break and are formatted. Avoid this behaviour if possible. Similarly, do not put more
than one space between words in an ordinary text line; they are not “normalized” to a single space as other text
formatters might do.
Don't try to use the neutral double quote character ‘"’ to represent itself in an argument. Use the special
character escape sequence ‘\(dq’ to format it. Further, this glyph should not be used for conventional quota‐
tion; mdoc offers several quotation macros. See subsection “Enclosure and quoting macros” below.
The formatter attempts to detect the ends of sentences and by default puts the equivalent of two spaces between
sentences on the same output line; see roff(7). To defeat this detection in a parsed list of macro arguments,
put ‘\&’ before the punctuation mark. Thus,
The
.Ql .
character.
.Pp
The
.Ql \&.
character.
.Pp
.No test .
test
.Pp
.No test.
test
gives
The ‘’. character
The ‘.’ character.
test. test
test. test
as output. As can be seen in the first and third output lines, mdoc handles punctuation characters specially in
macro arguments. This will be explained in section “General syntax” below.
A comment in the source file of a man page can begin with ‘.\"’ at the start of an input line, ‘\"’ after other
input, or ‘\#’ anywhere (the last is a groff extension); the remainder of any such line is ignored.
A man page template
Use mdoc to construct a man page from the following template.
.\" The following three macro calls are required.
.Dd date
.Dt topic [section-identifier [section-keyword-or-title]]
.Os [package-or-operating system [version-or-release]]
.Sh Name
.Nm topic
.Nd summary-description
.\" The next heading is used in sections 2 and 3.
.\" .Sh Library
.\" The next heading is used in sections 1-4, 6, 8, and 9.
.Sh Synopsis
.Sh Description
.\" Uncomment and populate the following sections as needed.
.\" .Sh "Implementation notes"
.\" The next heading is used in sections 2, 3, and 9.
.\" .Sh "Return values"
.\" The next heading is used in sections 1, 3, 6, and 8.
.\" .Sh Environment
.\" .Sh Files
.\" The next heading is used in sections 1, 6, and 8.
.\" .Sh "Exit status"
.\" .Sh Examples
.\" The next heading is used in sections 1, 4, 6, 8, and 9.
.\" .Sh Diagnostics
.\" .Sh Compatibility
.\" The next heading is used in sections 2, 3, 4, and 9.
.\" .Sh Errors
.\" .Sh "See also"
.\" .Sh Standards
.\" .Sh History
.\" .Sh Authors
.\" .Sh Caveats
.\" .Sh Bugs
The first items in the template are the commands .Dd, .Dt, and .Os. They identify the page and are discussed be‐
low in section “Title macros”.
The remaining items in the template are section headings (.Sh); of which “Name” and “Description” are mandatory.
These headings are discussed in section “Page structure domain”, which follows section “Manual domain”. Famil‐
iarize yourself with manual domain macros first; we use them to illustrate the use of page structure domain
macros.
Conventions
In the descriptions of macros below, square brackets surround optional arguments. An ellipsis (‘...’) represents
repetition of the preceding argument zero or more times. Alternative values of a parameter are separated with
‘|’. If a mandatory parameter can take one of several alternative values, use braces to enclose the set, with
spaces and ‘|’ separating the items.
ztar {c | x} [-w [-y | -z]] [-f archive] member ...
An alternative to using braces is to separately synopsize distinct operation modes, particularly if the list of
valid optional arguments is dependent on the user's choice of a mandatory parameter.
ztar c [-w [-y | -z]] [-f archive] member ...
ztar x [-w [-y | -z]] [-f archive] member ...
Most macros affect subsequent arguments until another macro or a newline is encountered. For example, ‘.Li ls Bq
Ar file’ doesn't produce ‘ls [file]’, but ‘ls [file]’. Consequently, a warning message is emitted for many com‐
mands if the first argument is itself a macro, since it cancels the effect of the preceding one. On rare occa‐
sions, you might want to format a word along with surrounding brackets as a literal.
.Li "ls [file]" → ls [file] # list any files named e, f, i, or l
Many macros possess an implicit width, used when they are contained in lists and displays. If you avoid relying
on these default measurements, you escape potential conflicts with site-local modifications of the mdoc package.
Explicit -width and -offset arguments to the .Bl and .Bd macros are preferable.
Title macros
We present the mandatory title macros first due to their importance even though they formally belong to the page
structure domain macros. They designate the topic, date of last revision, and the operating system or software
project associated with the page. Call each once at the beginning of the document. They populate the page head‐
ers and footers, which are in roff parlance termed “titles”.
.Dd date
This first macro of any mdoc manual records the last modification date of the document source. Arguments
are concatenated and separated with space characters.
Historically, date was written in U.S. traditional format, “Month day , year” where Month is the full
month name in English, day an integer without a leading zero, and year the four-digit year. This local‐
ism is not enforced, however. You may prefer ISO 8601 format, YYYY-MM-DD. A date of the form ‘$Mdocdate:
Month day year $’ is also recognized. It is used in OpenBSD manuals to automatically insert the current
date when committing.
This macro is neither callable nor parsed.
.Dt topic [section-identifier [section-keyword-or-title]]
topic is the subject of the man page. A section-identifier that begins with an integer in the range 1–9
or is one of the words ‘unass’, ‘draft’, or ‘paper’ selects a predefined section title. This use of
“section” has nothing to do with the section headings otherwise discussed in this page; it arises from
the organizational scheme of printed and bound Unix manuals.
In this implementation, the following titles are defined for integral section numbers.
1 General Commands Manual
2 System Calls Manual
3 Library Functions Manual
4 Kernel Interfaces Manual
5 File Formats Manual
6 Games Manual
7 Miscellaneous Information Manual
8 System Manager's Manual
9 Kernel Developer's Manual
A section title may be arbitrary or one of the following abbreviations.
USD User's Supplementary Documents
PS1 Programmer's Supplementary Documents
AMD Ancestral Manual Documents
SMM System Manager's Manual
URM User's Reference Manual
PRM Programmer's Manual
KM Kernel Manual
IND Manual Master Index
LOCAL Local Manual
CON Contributed Software Manual
For compatibility, ‘MMI’ can be used for ‘IND’, and ‘LOC’ for ‘LOCAL’. Values from the previous table
will specify a new section title. If section-keyword-or-title designates a computer architecture recog‐
nized by groff mdoc, its value is prepended to the default section title as specified by the second para‐
meter. By default, the following architecture keywords are defined.
acorn26, acorn32, algor, alpha, amd64, amiga, amigappc, arc, arm, arm26, arm32, armish, atari,
aviion, beagle, bebox, cats, cesfic, cobalt, dreamcast, emips, evbarm, evbmips, evbppc, evbsh3,
ews4800mips, hp300, hp700, hpcarm, hpcmips, hpcsh, hppa, hppa64, i386, ia64, ibmnws, iyonix, landisk,
loongson, luna68k, luna88k, m68k, mac68k, macppc, mips, mips64, mipsco, mmeye, mvme68k, mvme88k,
mvmeppc, netwinder, news68k, newsmips, next68k, ofppc, palm, pc532, playstation2, pmax, pmppc,
powerpc, prep, rs6000, sandpoint, sbmips, sgi, sgimips, sh3, shark, socppc, solbourne, sparc,
sparc64, sun2, sun3, tahoe, vax, x68k, x86_64, xen, zaurus
If a section title is not determined after the above matches have been attempted,
section-keyword-or-title is used.
The effects of varying ‘.Dt’ arguments on the page header content are shown below. Observe how ‘\&’ pre‐
vents the numeral 2 from being used to look up a predefined section title.
.Dt foo 2 → foo(2) System Calls Manual foo(2)
.Dt foo 2 m68k → foo(2) m68k System Calls Manual foo(2)
.Dt foo 2 baz → foo(2) System Calls Manual foo(2)
.Dt foo \&2 baz → foo(2) baz foo(2)
.Dt foo "" baz → foo baz foo
.Dt foo M Z80 → foo(M) Z80 foo(M)
roff strings define section titles and architecture identifiers. Site-specific additions might be found
in the file mdoc.local; see section “Files” below.
This macro is neither callable nor parsed.
.Os [operating-system-or-package-name [version-or-release]]
This macro associates the document with a software distribution. When composing a man page to be in‐
cluded in the base installation of an operating system, do not provide an argument; mdoc will supply it.
In this implementation, that default is “GNU”. It may be overridden in the site configuration file,
mdoc.local; see section “Files” below. A portable software package maintaining its own man pages can
supply its name and version number or release identifier as optional arguments. A version-or-release ar‐
gument should use the standard nomenclature for the software specified. In the following table, recog‐
nized version-or-release arguments for some predefined operating systems are listed. As with .Dt, site
additions might be defined in mdoc.local.
ATT 7th, 7, III, 3, V, V.2, V.3, V.4
BSD 3, 4, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.3t, 4.3T, 4.3r, 4.3R, 4.4
NetBSD 0.8, 0.8a, 0.9, 0.9a, 1.0, 1.0a, 1.1, 1.2, 1.2a, 1.2b, 1.2c, 1.2d, 1.2e, 1.3, 1.3a, 1.4,
1.4.1, 1.4.2, 1.4.3, 1.5, 1.5.1, 1.5.2, 1.5.3, 1.6, 1.6.1, 1.6.2, 1.6.3, 2.0, 2.0.1,
2.0.2, 2.0.3, 2.1, 3.0, 3.0.1, 3.0.2, 3.0.3, 3.1, 3.1.1, 4.0, 4.0.1, 5.0, 5.0.1, 5.0.2,
5.1, 5.1.2, 5.1.3, 5.1.4, 5.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 6.0, 6.0.1, 6.0.2, 6.0.3, 6.0.4, 6.0.5,
6.0.6, 6.1, 6.1.1, 6.1.2, 6.1.3, 6.1.4, 6.1.5, 7.0, 7.0.1, 7.0.2, 7.1, 7.1.1, 7.1.2,
7.2, 8.0, 8.1
FreeBSD 1.0, 1.1, 1.1.5, 1.1.5.1, 2.0, 2.0.5, 2.1, 2.1.5, 2.1.6, 2.1.7, 2.2, 2.2.1, 2.2.2,
2.2.5, 2.2.6, 2.2.7, 2.2.8, 2.2.9, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 4.0, 4.1, 4.1.1, 4.2,
4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.6.2, 4.7, 4.8, 4.9, 4.10, 4.11, 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.2.1, 5.3, 5.4,
5.5, 6.0, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 9.0,
9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 11.0, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3, 12.0, 12.1
OpenBSD 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, 2.9, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6,
3.7, 3.8, 3.9, 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8, 4.9, 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3,
5.4, 5.5, 5.6, 5.7, 5.8, 5.9, 6.0, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5, 6.6
DragonFly 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 1.8.1, 1.9, 1.10, 1.11, 1.12, 1.12.2, 1.13,
2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, 2.9, 2.9.1, 2.10, 2.10.1, 2.11, 2.12, 2.13,
3.0, 3.0.1, 3.0.2, 3.1, 3.2, 3.2.1, 3.2.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.4.1, 3.4.2, 3.4.3, 3.5, 3.6,
3.6.1, 3.6.2, 3.7, 3.8, 3.8.1, 3.8.2, 4.0, 4.0.1, 4.0.2, 4.0.3, 4.0.4, 4.0.5, 4.0.6,
4.1, 4.2, 4.2.1, 4.2.2, 4.2.3, 4.2.4, 4.3, 4.4, 4.4.1, 4.4.2, 4.4.3, 4.5, 4.6, 4.6.1,
4.6.2, 4.7, 4.8, 4.8.1, 4.9, 5.0, 5.0.1, 5.0.2, 5.1, 5.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.4.1,
5.4.2, 5.4.3, 5.5, 5.6, 5.6.1, 5.6.2
Darwin 8.0.0, 8.1.0, 8.2.0, 8.3.0, 8.4.0, 8.5.0, 8.6.0, 8.7.0, 8.8.0, 8.9.0, 8.10.0, 8.11.0,
9.0.0, 9.1.0, 9.2.0, 9.3.0, 9.4.0, 9.5.0, 9.6.0, 9.7.0, 9.8.0, 10.0.0, 10.1.0, 10.2.0,
10.3.0, 10.4.0, 10.5.0, 10.6.0, 10.7.0, 10.8.0, 11.0.0, 11.1.0, 11.2.0, 11.3.0, 11.4.0,
11.5.0, 12.0.0, 12.1.0, 12.2.0, 13.0.0, 13.1.0, 13.2.0, 13.3.0, 13.4.0, 14.0.0, 14.1.0,
14.2.0, 14.3.0, 14.4.0, 14.5.0, 15.0.0, 15.1.0, 15.2.0, 15.3.0, 15.4.0, 15.5.0, 15.6.0,
16.0.0, 16.1.0, 16.2.0, 16.3.0, 16.4.0, 16.5.0, 16.6.0, 17.0.0, 17.1.0, 17.2.0, 17.3.0,
17.4.0, 17.5.0, 17.6.0, 17.7.0, 18.0.0, 18.1.0, 18.2.0, 18.3.0, 18.4.0, 18.5.0, 18.6.0,
18.7.0, 19.0.0, 19.1.0, 19.2.0
Historically, the first argument used with .Dt was BSD or ATT. An unrecognized version argument after
ATT is replaced with “Unix”; for other predefined abbreviations, it is ignored and a warning diagnostic
emitted. Otherwise, unrecognized arguments are displayed verbatim in the page footer. For instance,
this page uses “.Os groff 1.23.0” whereas a locally produced page might employ “.Os "UXYZ CS
Department"”, omitting versioning.
This macro is neither callable nor parsed.
Introduction to manual and general text domains
What's in a Name...
The manual domain macro names are derived from the day to day informal language used to describe commands, sub‐
routines and related files. Slightly different variations of this language are used to describe the three dif‐
ferent aspects of writing a man page. First, there is the description of mdoc macro command usage. Second is
the description of a Unix command with mdoc macros, and third, the description of a command to a user in the ver‐
bal sense; that is, discussion of a command in the text of a man page.
In the first case, troff macros are themselves a type of command; the general syntax for a troff command is:
.Xx argument1 argument2 ...
‘.Xx’ is a macro command, and anything following it are arguments to be processed. In the second case, the de‐
scription of a Unix command using the manual domain macros is a bit more involved; a typical “Synopsis” command
line might be displayed as:
filter [-flag] ⟨infile⟩ ⟨outfile⟩
Here, filter is the command name and the bracketed string -flag is a flag argument designated as optional by the
option brackets. In mdoc terms, ⟨infile⟩ and ⟨outfile⟩ are called meta arguments; in this example, the user has
to replace the meta expressions given in angle brackets with real file names. Note that in this document meta
arguments are used to describe mdoc commands; in most man pages, meta variables are not specifically written with
angle brackets. The macros that formatted the above example:
.Nm filter
.Op Fl flag
.Ao Ar infile Ac Ao Ar outfile Ac
In the third case, discussion of commands and command syntax includes both examples above, but may add more de‐
tail. The arguments ⟨infile⟩ and ⟨outfile⟩ from the example above might be referred to as operands or file
arguments. Some command-line argument lists are quite long:
make [-eiknqrstv] [-D variable] [-d flags] [-f makefile] [-I directory] [-j max_jobs] [variable=value]
[target ...]
Here one might talk about the command make and qualify the argument, makefile, as an argument to the flag, -f, or
discuss the optional file operand target. In the verbal context, such detail can prevent confusion, however the
mdoc package does not have a macro for an argument to a flag. Instead the ‘Ar’ argument macro is used for an
operand or file argument like target as well as an argument to a flag like variable. The make command line was
produced from:
.Nm make
.Op Fl eiknqrstv
.Op Fl D Ar variable
.Op Fl d Ar flags
.Op Fl f Ar makefile
.Op Fl I Ar directory
.Op Fl j Ar max_jobs
.Op Ar variable Ns = Ns Ar value
.Bk
.Op Ar target ...
.Ek
The ‘.Bk’ and ‘.Ek’ macros are explained in “Keeps”.
General Syntax
The manual domain and general text domain macros share a similar syntax with a few minor deviations; most no‐
tably, ‘.Ar’, ‘.Fl’, ‘.Nm’, and ‘.Pa’ differ only when called without arguments; and ‘.Fn’ and ‘.Xr’ impose an
order on their argument lists. All manual domain macros are capable of recognizing and properly handling punctu‐
ation, provided each punctuation character is separated by a leading space. If a command is given:
.Ar sptr, ptr),
The result is:
sptr, ptr),
The punctuation is not recognized and all is output in the font used by ‘.Ar’. If the punctuation is separated
by a leading white space:
.Ar sptr , ptr ) ,
The result is:
sptr, ptr),
The punctuation is now recognized and output in the default font distinguishing it from the argument strings. To
remove the special meaning from a punctuation character, escape it with ‘\&’.
The following punctuation characters are recognized by mdoc:
. , : ; (
) [ ] ? !
troff is limited as a macro language, and has difficulty when presented with a string containing certain mathe‐
matical, logical, or quotation character sequences:
{+,-,/,*,%,<,>,<=,>=,=,==,&,`,',"}
The problem is that troff may assume it is supposed to actually perform the operation or evaluation suggested by
the characters. To prevent the accidental evaluation of these characters, escape them with ‘\&’. Typical syntax
is shown in the first manual domain macro displayed below, ‘.Ad’.
Manual domain
Addresses
The address macro identifies an address construct.
Usage: .Ad ⟨address⟩ ...
.Ad addr1 addr1
.Ad addr1 . addr1.
.Ad addr1 , file2 addr1, file2
.Ad f1 , f2 , f3 : f1, f2, f3:
.Ad addr ) ) , addr)),
The default width is 12n.
Author Name
The ‘.An’ macro is used to specify the name of the author of the item being documented, or the name of the author
of the actual manual page.
Usage: .An ⟨author name⟩ ...
.An "Joe Author" Joe Author
.An "Joe Author" , Joe Author,
.An "Joe Author" Aq nobody@FreeBSD.org
Joe Author <nobody@FreeBSD.org>
.An "Joe Author" ) ) , Joe Author)),
The default width is 12n.
In a section titled “Authors”, ‘An’ causes a break, allowing each new name to appear on its own line. If this is
not desirable,
.An -nosplit
call will turn this off. To turn splitting back on, write
.An -split
Arguments
The .Ar argument macro may be used whenever an argument is referenced. If called without arguments, ‘file ...’
is output. This places the ellipsis in italics, which is ugly and incorrect, and will be noticed on terminals
that underline text instead of using an oblique typeface. We recommend using ‘.Ar file No ...’ instead.
Usage: .Ar [⟨argument⟩] ...
.Ar file ...
.Ar file No ... file ...
.Ar file1 file1
.Ar file1 . file1.
.Ar file1 file2 file1 file2
.Ar f1 f2 f3 : f1 f2 f3:
.Ar file ) ) , file)),
The default width is 12n.
Configuration Declaration (Section Four Only)
The ‘.Cd’ macro is used to demonstrate a config(8) declaration for a device interface in a section four manual.
Usage: .Cd ⟨argument⟩ ...
.Cd "device le0 at scode?" device le0 at scode?
In a section titled “Synopsis”, ‘Cd’ causes a break before and after its arguments.
The default width is 12n.
Command Modifiers
The command modifier is identical to the ‘.Fl’ (flag) command with the exception that the ‘.Cm’ macro does not
assert a dash in front of every argument. Traditionally flags are marked by the preceding dash, however, some
commands or subsets of commands do not use them. Command modifiers may also be specified in conjunction with in‐
teractive commands such as editor commands. See “Flags”.
The default width is 10n.
Defined Variables
A variable (or constant) that is defined in an include file is specified by the macro ‘.Dv’.
Usage: .Dv ⟨defined-variable⟩ ...
.Dv MAXHOSTNAMELEN MAXHOSTNAMELEN
.Dv TIOCGPGRP ) TIOCGPGRP)
The default width is 12n.
Errnos
The ‘.Er’ errno macro specifies the error return value for section 2, 3, and 9 library routines. The second ex‐
ample below shows ‘.Er’ used with the ‘.Bq’ general text domain macro, as it would be used in a section two man‐
ual page.
Usage: .Er ⟨errno type⟩ ...
.Er ENOENT ENOENT
.Er ENOENT ) ; ENOENT);
.Bq Er ENOTDIR [ENOTDIR]
The default width is 17n.
Environment Variables
The ‘.Ev’ macro specifies an environment variable.
Usage: .Ev ⟨argument⟩ ...
.Ev DISPLAY DISPLAY
.Ev PATH . PATH.
.Ev PRINTER ) ) , PRINTER)),
The default width is 15n.
Flags
The ‘.Fl’ macro handles command-line flags. It prepends a dash, ‘-’, to the flag. For interactive command flags
that are not prepended with a dash, the ‘.Cm’ (command modifier) macro is identical, but without the dash.
Usage: .Fl ⟨argument⟩ ...
.Fl -
.Fl cfv -cfv
.Fl cfv . -cfv.
.Cm cfv . cfv.
.Fl s v t -s -v -t
.Fl - , --,
.Fl xyz ) , -xyz),
.Fl | - |
The ‘.Fl’ macro without any arguments results in a dash representing stdin/stdout. Note that giving ‘.Fl’ a sin‐
gle dash will result in two dashes.
The default width is 12n.
Function Declarations
The ‘.Fd’ macro is used in the “Synopsis” section with section two or three functions. It is neither callable
nor parsed.
Usage: .Fd ⟨argument⟩ ...
.Fd "#include <sys/types.h>" #include <sys/types.h>
In a section titled “Synopsis”, ‘Fd’ causes a break if a function has already been presented and a break has not
occurred, leaving vertical space between one function declaration and the next.
In a section titled “Synopsis”, the ‘In’ macro represents the #include statement, and is the short form of the
above example. It specifies the C header file as being included in a C program. It also causes a break.
While not in the “Synopsis” section, it represents the header file enclosed in angle brackets.
Usage: .In ⟨header file⟩
.In stdio.h <stdio.h>
.In stdio.h <stdio.h>
Function Types
This macro is intended for the “Synopsis” section. It may be used anywhere else in the man page without prob‐
lems, but its main purpose is to present the function type (in BSD kernel normal form) for the “Synopsis” of sec‐
tions two and three. (It causes a break, allowing the function name to appear on the next line.)
Usage: .Ft ⟨type⟩ ...
.Ft struct stat struct stat
Functions (Library Routines)
The ‘.Fn’ macro is modeled on ANSI C conventions.
Usage: .Fn ⟨function⟩ [⟨parameter⟩] ...
.Fn getchar getchar()
.Fn strlen ) , strlen()),
.Fn align "char *ptr" , align(char *ptr),
Note that any call to another macro signals the end of the ‘.Fn’ call (it will insert a closing parenthesis at
that point).
For functions with many parameters (which is rare), the macros ‘.Fo’ (function open) and ‘.Fc’ (function close)
may be used with ‘.Fa’ (function argument).
Example:
.Ft int
.Fo res_mkquery
.Fa "int op"
.Fa "char *dname"
.Fa "int class"
.Fa "int type"
.Fa "char *data"
.Fa "int datalen"
.Fa "struct rrec *newrr"
.Fa "char *buf"
.Fa "int buflen"
.Fc
Produces:
int res_mkquery(int op, char *dname, int class, int type, char *data, int datalen, struct rrec *newrr,
char *buf, int buflen)
Typically, in a “Synopsis” section, the function delcaration will begin the line. If more than one function is
presented in the “Synopsis” section and a function type has not been given, a break will occur, leaving vertical
space between the current and prior function names.
The default width values of ‘.Fn’ and ‘.Fo’ are 12n and 16n, respectively.
Function Arguments
The ‘.Fa’ macro is used to refer to function arguments (parameters) outside of the “Synopsis” section of the man‐
ual or inside the “Synopsis” section if the enclosure macros ‘.Fo’ and ‘.Fc’ instead of ‘.Fn’ are used. ‘.Fa’
may also be used to refer to structure members.
Usage: .Fa ⟨function argument⟩ ...
.Fa d_namlen ) ) , d_namlen)),
.Fa iov_len iov_len
The default width is 12n.
Return Values
The ‘.Rv’ macro generates text for use in the “Return values” section.
Usage: .Rv [-std] [⟨function⟩ ...]
For example, ‘.Rv -std atexit’ produces:
The atexit() function returns the value 0 if successful; otherwise the value -1 is returned and the global
variable errno is set to indicate the error.
The -std option is valid only for manual page sections 2 and 3. Currently, this macro does nothing if used with‐
out the -std flag.
Exit Status
The ‘.Ex’ macro generates text for use in the “Diagnostics” section.
Usage: .Ex [-std] [⟨utility⟩ ...]
For example, ‘.Ex -std cat’ produces:
The cat utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
The -std option is valid only for manual page sections 1, 6 and 8. Currently, this macro does nothing if used
without the -std flag.
Interactive Commands
The ‘.Ic’ macro designates an interactive or internal command.
Usage: .Ic ⟨argument⟩ ...
.Ic :wq :wq
.Ic "do while {...}" do while {...}
.Ic setenv , unsetenv setenv, unsetenv
The default width is 12n.
Library Names
The ‘.Lb’ macro is used to specify the library where a particular function is compiled in.
Usage: .Lb ⟨argument⟩ ...
Available arguments to ‘.Lb’ and their results are:
libarchive Reading and Writing Streaming Archives Library (libarchive, -larchive)
libarm ARM Architecture Library (libarm, -larm)
libarm32 ARM32 Architecture Library (libarm32, -larm32)
libbluetooth Bluetooth Library (libbluetooth, -lbluetooth)
libbsm Basic Security Module Library (libbsm, -lbsm)
libc Standard C Library (libc, -lc)
libc_r Reentrant C Library (libc_r, -lc_r)
libcalendar Calendar Arithmetic Library (libcalendar, -lcalendar)
libcam Common Access Method User Library (libcam, -lcam)
libcdk Curses Development Kit Library (libcdk, -lcdk)
libcipher FreeSec Crypt Library (libcipher, -lcipher)
libcompat Compatibility Library (libcompat, -lcompat)
libcrypt Crypt Library (libcrypt, -lcrypt)
libcurses Curses Library (libcurses, -lcurses)
libdevinfo Device and Resource Information Utility Library (libdevinfo, -ldevinfo)
libdevstat Device Statistics Library (libdevstat, -ldevstat)
libdisk Interface to Slice and Partition Labels Library (libdisk, -ldisk)
libdwarf DWARF Access Library (libdwarf, -ldwarf)
libedit Command Line Editor Library (libedit, -ledit)
libelf ELF Access Library (libelf, -lelf)
libevent Event Notification Library (libevent, -levent)
libfetch File Transfer Library for URLs (libfetch, -lfetch)
libform Curses Form Library (libform, -lform)
libgeom Userland API Library for kernel GEOM subsystem (libgeom, -lgeom)
libgpib General-Purpose Instrument Bus (GPIB) library (libgpib, -lgpib)
libi386 i386 Architecture Library (libi386, -li386)
libintl Internationalized Message Handling Library (libintl, -lintl)
libipsec IPsec Policy Control Library (libipsec, -lipsec)
libipx IPX Address Conversion Support Library (libipx, -lipx)
libiscsi iSCSI protocol library (libiscsi, -liscsi)
libjail Jail Library (libjail, -ljail)
libkiconv Kernel side iconv library (libkiconv, -lkiconv)
libkse N:M Threading Library (libkse, -lkse)
libkvm Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm, -lkvm)
libm Math Library (libm, -lm)
libm68k m68k Architecture Library (libm68k, -lm68k)
libmagic Magic Number Recognition Library (libmagic, -lmagic)
libmd Message Digest (MD4, MD5, etc.) Support Library (libmd, -lmd)
libmemstat Kernel Memory Allocator Statistics Library (libmemstat, -lmemstat)
libmenu Curses Menu Library (libmenu, -lmenu)
libnetgraph Netgraph User Library (libnetgraph, -lnetgraph)
libnetpgp Netpgp signing, verification, encryption and decryption (libnetpgp, -lnetpgp)
libossaudio OSS Audio Emulation Library (libossaudio, -lossaudio)
libpam Pluggable Authentication Module Library (libpam, -lpam)
libpcap Packet Capture Library (libpcap, -lpcap)
libpci PCI Bus Access Library (libpci, -lpci)
libpmc Performance Counters Library (libpmc, -lpmc)
libposix POSIX Compatibility Library (libposix, -lposix)
libprop Property Container Object Library (libprop, -lprop)
libpthread POSIX Threads Library (libpthread, -lpthread)
libpuffs puffs Convenience Library (libpuffs, -lpuffs)
librefuse File System in Userspace Convenience Library (librefuse, -lrefuse)
libresolv DNS Resolver Library (libresolv, -lresolv)
librpcsec_gss RPC GSS-API Authentication Library (librpcsec_gss, -lrpcsec_gss)
librpcsvc RPC Service Library (librpcsvc, -lrpcsvc)
librt POSIX Real-time Library (librt, -lrt)
libsdp Bluetooth Service Discovery Protocol User Library (libsdp, -lsdp)
libssp Buffer Overflow Protection Library (libssp, -lssp)
libSystem System Library (libSystem, -lSystem)
libtermcap Termcap Access Library (libtermcap, -ltermcap)
libterminfo Terminal Information Library (libterminfo, -lterminfo)
libthr 1:1 Threading Library (libthr, -lthr)
libufs UFS File System Access Library (libufs, -lufs)
libugidfw File System Firewall Interface Library (libugidfw, -lugidfw)
libulog User Login Record Library (libulog, -lulog)
libusbhid USB Human Interface Devices Library (libusbhid, -lusbhid)
libutil System Utilities Library (libutil, -lutil)
libvgl Video Graphics Library (libvgl, -lvgl)
libx86_64 x86_64 Architecture Library (libx86_64, -lx86_64)
libz Compression Library (libz, -lz)
Site-specific additions might be found in the file mdoc.local; see section “Files” below.
In a section titled “Library”, ‘Lb’ causes a break before and after its arguments.
Literals
The ‘Li’ literal macro may be used for special characters, symbolic constants, and other syntactical items that
should be typed exactly as displayed.
Usage: .Li ⟨argument⟩ ...
.Li \en \n
.Li M1 M2 M3 ; M1 M2 M3;
.Li cntrl-D ) , cntrl-D),
.Li 1024 ... 1024 ...
The default width is 16n.
Names
The ‘Nm’ macro is used for the document title or page topic. Upon its first call, it has the peculiarity of re‐
membering its argument, which should always be the topic of the man page. When subsequently called without argu‐
ments, ‘Nm’ regurgitates this initial name for the sole purpose of making less work for the author. Use of ‘Nm’
is also appropriate when presenting a command synopsis for the topic of a man page in section 1, 6, or 8. Its
behavior changes when presented with arguments of various forms.
.Nm groff_mdoc groff_mdoc
.Nm groff_mdoc
.Nm \-mdoc -mdoc
.Nm foo ) ) , foo)),
.Nm : groff_mdoc:
By default, the topic is set in boldface to reflect its prime importance in the discussion. Cross references to
other man page topics should use ‘Xr’; including a second argument for the section number enables them to be hy‐
perlinked. By default, cross-referenced topics are set in italics to avoid cluttering the page with boldface.
The default width is 10n.
Options
The ‘.Op’ macro places option brackets around any remaining arguments on the command line, and places any trail‐
ing punctuation outside the brackets. The macros ‘.Oo’ and ‘.Oc’ (which produce an opening and a closing option
bracket, respectively) may be used across one or more lines or to specify the exact position of the closing
parenthesis.
Usage: .Op [⟨option⟩] ...
.Op []
.Op Fl k [-k]
.Op Fl k ) . [-k]).
.Op Fl k Ar kookfile [-k kookfile]
.Op Fl k Ar kookfile , [-k kookfile],
.Op Ar objfil Op Ar corfil [objfil [corfil]]
.Op Fl c Ar objfil Op Ar corfil , [-c objfil [corfil]],
.Op word1 word2 [word1 word2]
.Li .Op Oo Ao option Ac Oc ... .Op [⟨option⟩] ...
Here a typical example of the ‘.Oo’ and ‘.Oc’ macros:
.Oo
.Op Fl k Ar kilobytes
.Op Fl i Ar interval
.Op Fl c Ar count
.Oc
Produces:
[[-k kilobytes] [-i interval] [-c count]]
The default width values of ‘.Op’ and ‘.Oo’ are 14n and 10n, respectively.
Pathnames
The ‘.Pa’ macro formats file specifications. If called without arguments, ‘~’ (recognized by many shells) is
output, representing the user's home directory.
Usage: .Pa [⟨pathname⟩] ...
.Pa ~
.Pa /usr/share /usr/share
.Pa /tmp/fooXXXXX ) . /tmp/fooXXXXX).
The default width is 32n.
Standards
The ‘.St’ macro replaces standard abbreviations with their formal names.
Usage: .St ⟨abbreviation⟩ ...
Available pairs for “Abbreviation/Formal Name” are:
ANSI/ISO C
-ansiC ANSI X3.159-1989 (“ANSI C89”)
-ansiC-89 ANSI X3.159-1989 (“ANSI C89”)
-isoC ISO/IEC 9899:1990 (“ISO C90”)
-isoC-90 ISO/IEC 9899:1990 (“ISO C90”)
-isoC-99 ISO/IEC 9899:1999 (“ISO C99”)
-isoC-2011 ISO/IEC 9899:2011 (“ISO C11”)
POSIX Part 1: System API
-iso9945-1-90 ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990 (“POSIX.1”)
-iso9945-1-96 ISO/IEC 9945-1:1996 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1 IEEE Std 1003.1 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1-88 IEEE Std 1003.1-1988 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1-90 ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1-96 ISO/IEC 9945-1:1996 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1b-93 IEEE Std 1003.1b-1993 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1c-95 IEEE Std 1003.1c-1995 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1g-2000 IEEE Std 1003.1g-2000 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1i-95 IEEE Std 1003.1i-1995 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1-2001 IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1-2004 IEEE Std 1003.1-2004 (“POSIX.1”)
-p1003.1-2008 IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”)
POSIX Part 2: Shell and Utilities
-iso9945-2-93 ISO/IEC 9945-2:1993 (“POSIX.2”)
-p1003.2 IEEE Std 1003.2 (“POSIX.2”)
-p1003.2-92 IEEE Std 1003.2-1992 (“POSIX.2”)
-p1003.2a-92 IEEE Std 1003.2a-1992 (“POSIX.2”)
X/Open
-susv1 Version 1 of the Single UNIX Specification (“SUSv1”)
-susv2 Version 2 of the Single UNIX Specification (“SUSv2”)
-susv3 Version 3 of the Single UNIX Specification (“SUSv3”)
-susv4 Version 4 of the Single UNIX Specification (“SUSv4”)
-svid4 System V Interface Definition, Fourth Edition (“SVID4”)
-xbd5 X/Open Base Definitions Issue 5 (“XBD5”)
-xcu5 X/Open Commands and Utilities Issue 5 (“XCU5”)
-xcurses4.2 X/Open Curses Issue 4, Version 2 (“XCURSES4.2”)
-xns5 X/Open Networking Services Issue 5 (“XNS5”)
-xns5.2 X/Open Networking Services Issue 5.2 (“XNS5.2”)
-xpg3 X/Open Portability Guide Issue 3 (“XPG3”)
-xpg4 X/Open Portability Guide Issue 4 (“XPG4”)
-xpg4.2 X/Open Portability Guide Issue 4, Version 2 (“XPG4.2”)
-xsh5 X/Open System Interfaces and Headers Issue 5 (“XSH5”)
Miscellaneous
-ieee754 IEEE Std 754-1985
-iso8601 ISO 8601
-iso8802-3 ISO/IEC 8802-3:1989
Variable Types
The ‘.Vt’ macro may be used whenever a type is referenced. In a section titled “Synopsis”, ‘Vt’ causes a break
(useful for old-style C variable declarations).
Usage: .Vt ⟨type⟩ ...
.Vt extern char *optarg ; extern char *optarg;
.Vt FILE * FILE *
Variables
Generic variable reference.
Usage: .Va ⟨variable⟩ ...
.Va count count
.Va settimer , settimer,
.Va "int *prt" ) : int *prt):
.Va "char s" ] ) ) , char s])),
The default width is 12n.
Manual Page Cross References
The ‘.Xr’ macro expects the first argument to be a manual page name. The optional second argument, if a string
(defining the manual section), is put into parentheses.
Usage: .Xr ⟨man page name⟩ [⟨section⟩] ...
.Xr mdoc mdoc
.Xr mdoc , mdoc,
.Xr mdoc 7 mdoc(7)
.Xr xinit 1x ; xinit(1x);
The default width is 10n.
General text domain
AT&T Macro
Usage: .At [⟨version⟩] ...
.At AT&T UNIX
.At v6 . Version 6 AT&T UNIX.
The following values for ⟨version⟩ are possible:
32v, v1, v2, v3, v4, v5, v6, v7, III, V, V.1, V.2, V.3, V.4
BSD Macro
Usage: .Bx {-alpha | -beta | -devel} ...
.Bx [⟨version⟩ [⟨release⟩]] ...
.Bx BSD
.Bx 4.3 . 4.3BSD.
.Bx -devel BSD (currently under development)
⟨version⟩ will be prepended to the string ‘BSD’. The following values for ⟨release⟩ are possible:
Reno, reno, Tahoe, tahoe, Lite, lite, Lite2, lite2
NetBSD Macro
Usage: .Nx [⟨version⟩] ...
.Nx NetBSD
.Nx 1.4 . NetBSD 1.4.
For possible values of ⟨version⟩ see the description of the ‘.Os’ command above in section “Title macros”.
FreeBSD Macro
Usage: .Fx [⟨version⟩] ...
.Fx FreeBSD
.Fx 2.2 . FreeBSD 2.2.
For possible values of ⟨version⟩ see the description of the ‘.Os’ command above in section “Title macros”.
DragonFly Macro
Usage: .Dx [⟨version⟩] ...
.Dx DragonFly
.Dx 1.4 . DragonFly 1.4.
For possible values of ⟨version⟩ see the description of the ‘.Os’ command above in section “Title macros”.
OpenBSD Macro
Usage: .Ox [⟨version⟩] ...
.Ox 1.0 OpenBSD 1.0
BSD/OS Macro
Usage: .Bsx [⟨version⟩] ...
.Bsx 1.0 BSD/OS 1.0
Unix Macro
Usage: .Ux ...
.Ux Unix
Emphasis Macro
Text may be stressed or emphasized with the ‘.Em’ macro. The usual font for emphasis is italic.
Usage: .Em ⟨argument⟩ ...
.Em does not does not
.Em exceed 1024 . exceed 1024.
.Em vide infra ) ) , vide infra)),
The default width is 10n.
Font Mode
The ‘.Bf’ font mode must be ended with the ‘.Ef’ macro (the latter takes no arguments). Font modes may be nested
within other font modes.
‘.Bf’ has the following syntax:
.Bf ⟨font mode⟩
⟨font mode⟩ must be one of the following three types:
Em | -emphasis Same as if the ‘.Em’ macro was used for the entire block of text.
Li | -literal Same as if the ‘.Li’ macro was used for the entire block of text.
Sy | -symbolic Same as if the ‘.Sy’ macro was used for the entire block of text.
Both macros are neither callable nor parsed.
Enclosure and Quoting Macros
The concept of enclosure is similar to quoting. The object being to enclose one or more strings between a pair
of characters like quotes or parentheses. The terms quoting and enclosure are used interchangeably throughout
this document. Most of the one-line enclosure macros end in small letter ‘q’ to give a hint of quoting, but
there are a few irregularities. For each enclosure macro, there is a pair of opening and closing macros that end
with the lowercase letters ‘o’ and ‘c’ respectively.
Quote Open Close Function Result
.Aq .Ao .Ac Angle Bracket Enclosure <string>
.Bq .Bo .Bc Bracket Enclosure [string]
.Brq .Bro .Brc Brace Enclosure {string}
.Dq .Do .Dc Double Quote “string”
.Eq .Eo .Ec Enclose String (in XY) XstringY
.Pq .Po .Pc Parenthesis Enclosure (string)
.Ql Quoted Literal “string” or string
.Qq .Qo .Qc Straight Double Quote "string"
.Sq .So .Sc Single Quote ‘string’
All macros ending with ‘q’ and ‘o’ have a default width value of 12n.
.Eo, .Ec These macros expect the first argument to be the opening and closing strings, respectively.
.Es, .En To work around the nine-argument limit in the original troff program, mdoc supports two other macros
that are now obsolete. ‘.Es’ uses its first and second parameters as opening and closing marks which
are then used to enclose the arguments of ‘.En’. The default width value is 12n for both macros.
.Eq The first and second arguments of this macro are the opening and closing strings respectively, followed
by the arguments to be enclosed.
.Ql The quoted literal macro behaves differently in troff and nroff modes. If formatted with nroff(1), a
quoted literal is always quoted. If formatted with troff, an item is only quoted if the width of the
item is less than three constant-width characters. This is to make short strings more visible where
the font change to literal (constant-width) is less noticeable.
The default width is 16n.
.Pf The prefix macro suppresses the whitespace between its first and second argument:
.Pf ( Fa name2 (name2
The default width is 12n.
The ‘.Ns’ macro (see below) performs the analogous suffix function.
.Ap The ‘.Ap’ macro inserts an apostrophe and exits any special text modes, continuing in ‘.No’ mode.
Examples of quoting:
.Aq ⟨⟩
.Aq Pa ctype.h ) , ⟨ctype.h⟩),
.Bq []
.Bq Em Greek , French . [Greek, French].
.Dq “”
.Dq string abc . “string abc”.
.Dq '\[ha][A-Z]' “'^[A-Z]'”
.Ql man mdoc ‘man mdoc’
.Qq ""
.Qq string ) , "string"),
.Qq string Ns ), "string),"
.Sq ‘’
.Sq string ‘string’
.Em or Ap ing or'ing
For a good example of nested enclosure macros, see the ‘.Op’ option macro. It was created from the same underly‐
ing enclosure macros as those presented in the list above. The ‘.Xo’ and ‘.Xc’ extended argument list macros are
discussed below.
Normal text macro
‘No’ formats subsequent argument(s) normally, ending the effect of ‘Em’ and similar. Parsing is not suppressed,
so you must prefix words like ‘No’ with ‘\&’ to avoid their interpretation as mdoc macros.
Usage: .No argument ...
.Em Use caution No here . → Use caution here.
.Em No dogs allowed . → No dogs allowed.
.Em \&No dogs allowed . → No dogs allowed.
The default width is 12n.
No-Space Macro
The ‘.Ns’ macro suppresses insertion of a space between the current position and its first parameter. For exam‐
ple, it is useful for old style argument lists where there is no space between the flag and argument:
Usage: ... ⟨argument⟩ Ns [⟨argument⟩] ...
.Ns ⟨argument⟩ ...
.Op Fl I Ns Ar directory [-Idirectory]
Note: The ‘.Ns’ macro always invokes the ‘.No’ macro after eliminating the space unless another macro name fol‐
lows it. If used as a command (i.e., the second form above in the ‘Usage’ line), ‘.Ns’ is identical to ‘.No’.
(Sub)section cross references
Use the ‘.Sx’ macro to cite a (sub)section heading within the given document.
Usage: .Sx ⟨section-reference⟩ ...
.Sx Files → “Files”
The default width is 16n.
Symbolics
The symbolic emphasis macro is generally a boldface macro in either the symbolic sense or the traditional English
usage.
Usage: .Sy ⟨symbol⟩ ...
.Sy Important Notice → Important Notice
The default width is 6n.
Mathematical Symbols
Use this macro for mathematical symbols and similar things.
Usage: .Ms ⟨math symbol⟩ ...
.Ms sigma → sigma
The default width is 6n.
References and Citations
The following macros make a modest attempt to handle references. At best, the macros make it convenient to manu‐
ally drop in a subset of refer(1) style references.
.Rs Reference start (does not take arguments). In a section titled “See also”, it causes a break and
begins collection of reference information until the reference end macro is read.
.Re Reference end (does not take arguments). The reference is printed.
.%A Reference author name; one name per invocation.
.%B Book title.
.%C City/place.
.%D Date.
.%I Issuer/publisher name.
.%J Journal name.
.%N Issue number.
.%O Optional information.
.%P Page number.
.%Q Corporate or foreign author.
.%R Report name.
.%T Title of article.
.%U Optional hypertext reference.
.%V Volume.
Macros beginning with ‘%’ are not callable but accept multiple arguments in the usual way. Only the ‘.Tn’ macro
is handled properly as a parameter; other macros will cause strange output. ‘.%B’ and ‘.%T’ can be used outside
of the ‘.Rs/.Re’ environment.
Example:
.Rs
.%A "Matthew Bar"
.%A "John Foo"
.%T "Implementation Notes on foobar(1)"
.%R "Technical Report ABC-DE-12-345"
.%Q "Drofnats College"
.%C "Nowhere"
.%D "April 1991"
.Re
produces
Matthew Bar and John Foo, Implementation Notes on foobar(1), Technical Report ABC-DE-12-345, Drofnats
College, Nowhere, April 1991.
Trade Names or Acronyms
The trade name macro prints its arguments at a smaller type size. It is intended to imitate a small caps fonts
for fully capitalized acronyms.
Usage: .Tn ⟨symbol⟩ ...
.Tn DEC DEC
.Tn ASCII ASCII
The default width is 10n.
Extended Arguments
The .Xo and .Xc macros allow one to extend an argument list on a macro boundary for the ‘.It’ macro (see below).
Note that .Xo and .Xc are implemented similarly to all other macros opening and closing an enclosure (without in‐
serting characters, of course). This means that the following is true for those macros also.
Here is an example of ‘.Xo’ using the space mode macro to turn spacing off:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
.Sm off
.It Xo Sy I Ar operation
.No \en Ar count No \en
.Xc
.Sm on
.Ed
produces
Ioperation\ncount\n
Another one:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
.Sm off
.It Cm S No / Ar old_pattern Xo
.No / Ar new_pattern
.No / Op Cm g
.Xc
.Sm on
.Ed
produces
S/old_pattern/new_pattern/[g]
Another example of ‘.Xo’ and enclosure macros: Test the value of a variable.
.Bd -literal -offset indent
.It Xo
.Ic .ifndef
.Oo \&! Oc Ns Ar variable Oo
.Ar operator variable No ...
.Oc Xc
.Ed
produces
.ifndef [!]variable [operator variable ...]
Page structure domain
Section headings
The following ‘.Sh’ section heading macros are required in every man page. The remaining section headings are
recommended at the discretion of the author writing the manual page. The ‘.Sh’ macro is parsed but not generally
callable. It can be used as an argument in a call to ‘.Sh’ only; it then reactivates the default font for ‘.Sh’.
The default width is 8n.
.Sh Name The ‘.Sh Name’ macro is mandatory. If not specified, headers, footers, and page layout de‐
faults will not be set and things will be rather unpleasant. The Name section consists of at
least three items. The first is the ‘.Nm’ name macro naming the subject of the man page. The
second is the name description macro, ‘.Nd’, which separates the subject name from the third
item, which is the description. The description should be the most terse and lucid possible,
as the space available is small.
‘.Nd’ first prints ‘-’, then all its arguments.
.Sh Library This section is for section two and three function calls. It should consist of a single ‘.Lb’
macro call; see “Library Names”.
.Sh Synopsis The “Synopsis” section describes the typical usage of the subject of a man page. The macros
required are either ‘.Nm’, ‘.Cd’, or ‘.Fn’ (and possibly ‘.Fo’, ‘.Fc’, ‘.Fd’, and ‘.Ft’). The
function name macro ‘.Fn’ is required for manual page sections 2 and 3; the command and gen‐
eral name macro ‘.Nm’ is required for sections 1, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Section 4 manuals require a
‘.Nm’, ‘.Fd’ or a ‘.Cd’ configuration device usage macro. Several other macros may be neces‐
sary to produce the synopsis line as shown below:
cat [-benstuv] [-] file ...
The following macros were used:
.Nm cat
.Op Fl benstuv
.Op Fl
.Ar file No ...
.Sh Description In most cases the first text in the “Description” section is a brief paragraph on the command,
function or file, followed by a lexical list of options and respective explanations. To cre‐
ate such a list, the ‘.Bl’ (begin list), ‘.It’ (list item) and ‘.El’ (end list) macros are
used (see “Lists and Columns” below).
.Sh Implementation notes
Implementation specific information should be placed here.
.Sh Return values Sections 2, 3 and 9 function return values should go here. The ‘.Rv’ macro may be used to
generate text for use in the “Return values” section for most section 2 and 3 library func‐
tions; see “Return Values”.
The following ‘.Sh’ section headings are part of the preferred manual page layout and must be used appropriately
to maintain consistency. They are listed in the order in which they would be used.
.Sh Environment The Environment section should reveal any related environment variables and clues to their be‐
havior and/or usage.
.Sh Files Files which are used or created by the man page subject should be listed via the ‘.Pa’ macro
in the “Files” section.
.Sh Examples There are several ways to create examples. See subsection “Examples and Displays” below for
details.
.Sh Diagnostics Diagnostic messages from a command should be placed in this section. The ‘.Ex’ macro may be
used to generate text for use in the “Diagnostics” section for most section 1, 6 and 8 com‐
mands; see “Exit Status”.
.Sh Compatibility Known compatibility issues (e.g. deprecated options or parameters) should be listed here.
.Sh Errors Specific error handling, especially from library functions (man page sections 2, 3, and 9)
should go here. The ‘.Er’ macro is used to specify an error (errno).
.Sh See also References to other material on the man page topic and cross references to other relevant man
pages should be placed in the “See also” section. Cross references are specified using the
‘.Xr’ macro. Currently refer(1) style references are not accommodated.
It is recommended that the cross references be sorted by section number, then alphabetically
by name within each section, then separated by commas. Example:
ls(1), ps(1), group(5), passwd(5)
.Sh Standards If the command, library function, or file adheres to a specific implementation such as IEEE
Std 1003.2 (“POSIX.2”) or ANSI X3.159-1989 (“ANSI C89”) this should be noted here. If the
command does not adhere to any standard, its history should be noted in the History section.
.Sh History Any command which does not adhere to any specific standards should be outlined historically in
this section.
.Sh Authors Credits should be placed here. Use the ‘.An’ macro for names and the ‘.Aq’ macro for email
addresses within optional contact information. Explicitly indicate whether the person au‐
thored the initial manual page or the software or whatever the person is being credited for.
.Sh Bugs Blatant problems with the topic go here.
User-specified ‘.Sh’ sections may be added; for example, this section was set with:
.Sh "Page structure domain"
Subsection headings
Subsection headings have exactly the same syntax as section headings: ‘.Ss’ is parsed but not generally callable.
It can be used as an argument in a call to ‘.Ss’ only; it then reactivates the default font for ‘.Ss’.
The default width is 8n.
Paragraphs and Line Spacing
.Pp The ‘.Pp’ paragraph command may be used to specify a line space where necessary. The macro is not necessary
after a ‘.Sh’ or ‘.Ss’ macro or before a ‘.Bl’ or ‘.Bd’ macro (which both assert a vertical distance unless
the -compact flag is given).
The macro is neither callable nor parsed and takes no arguments; an alternative name is ‘.Lp’.
Keeps
The only keep that is implemented at this time is for words. The macros are ‘.Bk’ (begin keep) and ‘.Ek’ (end
keep). The only option that ‘.Bk’ currently accepts is -words (also the default); this prevents breaks in the
middle of options. In the example for make command-line arguments (see “What's in a Name”), the keep prevents
nroff from placing the flag and the argument on separate lines.
Neither macro is callable or parsed.
More work needs to be done on the keep macros; specifically, a -line option should be added.
Examples and Displays
There are seven types of displays.
.D1 (This is D-one.) Display one line of indented text. This macro is parsed but not callable.
-ldghfstru
The above was produced by: .D1 Fl ldghfstru.
.Dl (This is D-ell.) Display one line of indented literal text. The ‘.Dl’ example macro has been used through‐
out this file. It allows the indentation (display) of one line of text. Its default font is set to con‐
stant width (literal). ‘.Dl’ is parsed but not callable.
% ls -ldg /usr/local/bin
The above was produced by: .Dl % ls \-ldg /usr/local/bin.
.Bd Begin display. The ‘.Bd’ display must be ended with the ‘.Ed’ macro. It has the following syntax:
.Bd {-literal | -filled | -unfilled | -ragged | -centered} [-offset ⟨string⟩] [-file ⟨file name⟩]
[-compact]
-ragged Fill, but do not adjust the right margin (only left-justify).
-centered Center lines between the current left and right margin. Note that each single line is
centered.
-unfilled Do not fill; break lines where their input lines are broken. This can produce overlong
lines without warning messages.
-filled Display a filled block. The block of text is formatted (i.e., the text is justified on
both the left and right side).
-literal Display block with literal font (usually fixed-width). Useful for source code or simple
tabbed or spaced text.
-file ⟨file name⟩ The file whose name follows the -file flag is read and displayed before any data enclosed
with ‘.Bd’ and ‘.Ed’, using the selected display type. Any troff/mdoc commands in the
file will be processed.
-offset ⟨string⟩ If -offset is specified with one of the following strings, the string is interpreted to
indicate the level of indentation for the forthcoming block of text:
left Align block on the current left margin; this is the default mode of ‘.Bd’.
center Supposedly center the block. At this time unfortunately, the block merely
gets left aligned about an imaginary center margin.
indent Indent by one default indent value or tab. The default indent value is also
used for the ‘.D1’ and ‘.Dl’ macros, so one is guaranteed the two types of
displays will line up. The indentation value is normally set to 6n or about
two thirds of an inch (six constant width characters).
indent-two Indent two times the default indent value.
right This left aligns the block about two inches from the right side of the page.
This macro needs work and perhaps may never do the right thing within troff.
If ⟨string⟩ is a valid numeric expression instead (with a scaling indicator other than
‘u’), use that value for indentation. The most useful scaling indicators are ‘m’ and
‘n’, specifying the so-called Em and En square. This is approximately the width of the
letters ‘m’ and ‘n’ respectively of the current font (for nroff output, both scaling in‐
dicators give the same values). If ⟨string⟩ isn't a numeric expression, it is tested
whether it is an mdoc macro name, and the default offset value associated with this macro
is used. Finally, if all tests fail, the width of ⟨string⟩ (typeset with a fixed-width
font) is taken as the offset.
-compact Suppress insertion of vertical space before begin of display.
.Ed End display (takes no arguments).
Lists and Columns
There are several types of lists which may be initiated with the ‘.Bl’ begin-list macro. Items within the list
are specified with the ‘.It’ item macro, and each list must end with the ‘.El’ macro. Lists may be nested within
themselves and within displays. The use of columns inside of lists or lists inside of columns is untested.
In addition, several list attributes may be specified such as the width of a tag, the list offset, and compact‐
ness (blank lines between items allowed or disallowed). Most of this document has been formatted with a tag
style list (-tag).
It has the following syntax forms:
.Bl {-hang | -ohang | -tag | -diag | -inset} [-width ⟨string⟩] [-offset ⟨string⟩] [-compact]
.Bl -column [-offset ⟨string⟩] ⟨string1⟩ ⟨string2⟩ ...
.Bl {-item | -enum [-nested] | -bullet | -hyphen | -dash} [-offset ⟨string⟩] [-compact]
And now a detailed description of the list types.
-bullet A bullet list.
.Bl -bullet -offset indent -compact
.It
Bullet one goes here.
.It
Bullet two here.
.El
Produces:
• Bullet one goes here.
• Bullet two here.
-dash (or -hyphen)
A dash list.
.Bl -dash -offset indent -compact
.It
Dash one goes here.
.It
Dash two here.
.El
Produces:
- Dash one goes here.
- Dash two here.
-enum An enumerated list.
.Bl -enum -offset indent -compact
.It
Item one goes here.
.It
And item two here.
.El
The result:
1. Item one goes here.
2. And item two here.
If you want to nest enumerated lists, use the -nested flag (starting with the second-level list):
.Bl -enum -offset indent -compact
.It
Item one goes here
.Bl -enum -nested -compact
.It
Item two goes here.
.It
And item three here.
.El
.It
And item four here.
.El
Result:
1. Item one goes here.
1.1. Item two goes here.
1.2. And item three here.
2. And item four here.
-item A list of type -item without list markers.
.Bl -item -offset indent
.It
Item one goes here.
Item one goes here.
Item one goes here.
.It
Item two here.
Item two here.
Item two here.
.El
Produces:
Item one goes here. Item one goes here. Item one goes here.
Item two here. Item two here. Item two here.
-tag A list with tags. Use -width to specify the tag width.
SL sleep time of the process (seconds blocked)
PAGEIN
number of disk I/O operations resulting from references by the process to pages not loaded
in core.
UID numerical user-id of process owner
PPID numerical id of parent of process priority (non-positive when in non-interruptible wait)
The raw text:
.Bl -tag -width "PPID" -compact -offset indent
.It SL
sleep time of the process (seconds blocked)
.It PAGEIN
number of disk I/O operations resulting from references
by the process to pages not loaded in core.
.It UID
numerical user-id of process owner
.It PPID
numerical id of parent of process priority
(non-positive when in non-interruptible wait)
.El
-diag Diag lists create section four diagnostic lists and are similar to inset lists except callable macros
are ignored. The -width flag is not meaningful in this context.
Example:
.Bl -diag
.It You can't use Sy here.
The message says all.
.El
produces
You can't use Sy here. The message says all.
-hang A list with hanging tags.
Hanged labels appear similar to tagged lists when the label is smaller than the label width.
Longer hanged list labels blend into the paragraph unlike tagged paragraph labels.
And the unformatted text which created it:
.Bl -hang -offset indent
.It Em Hanged
labels appear similar to tagged lists when the
label is smaller than the label width.
.It Em Longer hanged list labels
blend into the paragraph unlike
tagged paragraph labels.
.El
-ohang Lists with overhanging tags do not use indentation for the items; tags are written to a separate line.
SL
sleep time of the process (seconds blocked)
PAGEIN
number of disk I/O operations resulting from references by the process to pages not loaded in
core.
UID
numerical user-id of process owner
PPID
numerical id of parent of process priority (non-positive when in non-interruptible wait)
The raw text:
.Bl -ohang -offset indent
.It Sy SL
sleep time of the process (seconds blocked)
.It Sy PAGEIN
number of disk I/O operations resulting from references
by the process to pages not loaded in core.
.It Sy UID
numerical user-id of process owner
.It Sy PPID
numerical id of parent of process priority
(non-positive when in non-interruptible wait)
.El
-inset Here is an example of inset labels:
Tag The tagged list (also called a tagged paragraph) is the most common type of list used in the
Berkeley manuals. Use a -width attribute as described below.
Diag Diag lists create section four diagnostic lists and are similar to inset lists except
callable macros are ignored.
Hang Hanged labels are a matter of taste.
Ohang Overhanging labels are nice when space is constrained.
Inset Inset labels are useful for controlling blocks of paragraphs and are valuable for converting
mdoc manuals to other formats.
Here is the source text which produced the above example:
.Bl -inset -offset indent
.It Em Tag
The tagged list (also called a tagged paragraph)
is the most common type of list used in the
Berkeley manuals.
.It Em Diag
Diag lists create section four diagnostic lists
and are similar to inset lists except callable
macros are ignored.
.It Em Hang
Hanged labels are a matter of taste.
.It Em Ohang
Overhanging labels are nice when space is constrained.
.It Em Inset
Inset labels are useful for controlling blocks of
paragraphs and are valuable for converting
.Xr mdoc
manuals to other formats.
.El
-column This list type generates multiple columns. The number of columns and the width of each column is deter‐
mined by the arguments to the -column list, ⟨string1⟩, ⟨string2⟩, etc. If ⟨stringN⟩ starts with a ‘.’
(dot) immediately followed by a valid mdoc macro name, interpret ⟨stringN⟩ and use the width of the re‐
sult. Otherwise, the width of ⟨stringN⟩ (typeset with a fixed-width font) is taken as the Nth column
width.
Each ‘.It’ argument is parsed to make a row, each column within the row is a separate argument separated
by a tab or the ‘.Ta’ macro.
The table:
String Nroff Troff
<= <= ≤
>= >= ≥
was produced by:
.Bl -column -offset indent ".Sy String" ".Sy Nroff" ".Sy Troff"
.It Sy String Ta Sy Nroff Ta Sy Troff
.It Li <= Ta <= Ta \*(<=
.It Li >= Ta >= Ta \*(>=
.El
Don't abuse this list type! For more complicated cases it might be far better and easier to use tbl(1),
the table preprocessor.
Other keywords:
-width ⟨string⟩ If ⟨string⟩ starts with a ‘.’ (dot) immediately followed by a valid mdoc macro name, interpret
⟨string⟩ and use the width of the result. Almost all lists in this document use this option.
Example:
.Bl -tag -width ".Fl test Ao Ar string Ac"
.It Fl test Ao Ar string Ac
This is a longer sentence to show how the
.Fl width
flag works in combination with a tag list.
.El
gives:
-test ⟨string⟩ This is a longer sentence to show how the -width flag works in combination with
a tag list.
(Note that the current state of mdoc is saved before ⟨string⟩ is interpreted; afterwards, all
variables are restored again. However, boxes (used for enclosures) can't be saved in GNU
troff(1); as a consequence, arguments must always be balanced to avoid nasty errors. For exam‐
ple, do not write ‘.Ao Ar string’ but ‘.Ao Ar string Xc’ instead if you really need only an
opening angle bracket.)
Otherwise, if ⟨string⟩ is a valid numeric expression (with a scaling indicator other than ‘u’),
use that value for indentation. The most useful scaling indicators are ‘m’ and ‘n’, specifying
the so-called Em and En square. This is approximately the width of the letters ‘m’ and ‘n’ re‐
spectively of the current font (for nroff output, both scaling indicators give the same val‐
ues). If ⟨string⟩ isn't a numeric expression, it is tested whether it is an mdoc macro name,
and the default width value associated with this macro is used. Finally, if all tests fail,
the width of ⟨string⟩ (typeset with a fixed-width font) is taken as the width.
If a width is not specified for the tag list type, ‘6n’ is used.
-offset ⟨string⟩ If ⟨string⟩ is indent, a default indent value (normally set to 6n, similar to the value used in
‘.Dl’ or ‘.Bd’) is used. If ⟨string⟩ is a valid numeric expression instead (with a scaling
indicator other than ‘u’), use that value for indentation. The most useful scaling indicators
are ‘m’ and ‘n’, specifying the so-called Em and En square. This is approximately the width of
the letters ‘m’ and ‘n’ respectively of the current font (for nroff output, both scaling indi‐
cators give the same values). If ⟨string⟩ isn't a numeric expression, it is tested whether it
is an mdoc macro name, and the default offset value associated with this macro is used. Fi‐
nally, if all tests fail, the width of ⟨string⟩ (typeset with a fixed-width font) is taken as
the offset.
-compact Suppress insertion of vertical space before the list and between list items.
Miscellaneous macros
A double handful of macros fit only uncomfortably into one of the above sections. Of these, we couldn't find at‐
tested examples for ‘Me’ or ‘Ot’. They are documented here for completeness—if you know their proper usage,
please send a mail to groff@gnu.org and include a specimen with its provenance.
.Bt formats boilerplate text.
.Bt → is currently in beta test.
It is neither callable nor parsed and takes no arguments. Its default width is 6n.
.Fr is an obsolete means of specifying a function return value.
Usage: .Fr return-value ...
‘Fr’ allows a break right before the return value (usually a single digit) which is bad typographical behav‐
iour. Instead, set the return value with the rest of the code, using ‘\~’ to tie the return value to the
previous word.
Its default width is 12n.
.Hf Inlines the contents of a (header) file into the document.
Usage: .Hf file
It first prints ‘File:’ followed by the file name, then the contents of file. It is neither callable nor
parsed.
.Lk Embed hyperlink.
Usage: .Lk uri [link-text]
Its default width is 6n.
.Me Usage unknown. The mdoc sources describe it as a macro for “menu entries”.
Its default width is 6n.
.Mt Embed email address.
Usage: .Mt email-address
Its default width is 6n.
.Ot Usage unknown. The mdoc sources describe it as “old function type (fortran)”.
.Sm Manipulate or toggle argument-spacing mode.
Usage: .Sm [on | off] ...
If argument-spacing mode is off, no spaces between macro arguments are inserted. If called without a para‐
meter (or if the next parameter is neither ‘on’ nor ‘off’), ‘Sm’ toggles argument-spacing mode.
Its default width is 8n.
.Ud formats boilerplate text.
.Ud → currently under development.
It is neither callable nor parsed and takes no arguments. Its default width is 8n.
Predefined strings
The following strings are predefined for compatibility with legacy mdoc documents. Contemporary ones should use
the alternatives shown in the “Prefer” column below. See groff_char(7) for a full discussion of these special
character escape sequences.
String 7-bit 8-bit UCS Prefer Meaning
\*(<= <= <= ≤ \(<= less than or equal to
\*(>= >= >= ≥ \(>= greater than or equal to
\*(Rq " " ” \(rq right double quote
\*(Lq " " “ \(lq left double quote
\*(ua ^ ^ ↑ \(ua vertical arrow up
\*(aa ' ´ ´ \(aa acute accent
\*(ga ` ` ` \(ga grave accent
\*(q " " " \(dq neutral double quote
\*(Pi pi pi π \(*p lowercase pi
\*(Ne != != ≠ \(!= not equals
\*(Le <= <= ≤ \(<= less than or equal to
\*(Ge >= >= ≥ \(>= greater than or equal to
\*(Lt < < < < less than
\*(Gt > > > > greater than
\*(Pm +- ± ± \(+- plus or minus
\*(If infinity infinity ∞ \(if infinity
\*(Am & & & & ampersand
\*(Na NaN NaN NaN NaN not a number
\*(Ba | | | | bar
Some column headings are shorthand for standardized character encodings; “7-bit” for ISO 646:1991 IRV (US-ASCII),
“8-bit” for ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) and IBM code page 1047, and “UCS” for ISO 10646 (Unicode character set). His‐
torically, mdoc configured the string definitions to fit the capabilities expected of the output device. Old
typesetters lacked directional double quotes, producing repeated directional single quotes ‘‘like this’’; early
versions of mdoc in fact defined the ‘Lq’ and ‘Rq’ strings this way. Nowadays, output drivers take on the re‐
sponsibility of glyph substitution, as they possess relevant knowledge of their available repertoires.
Diagnostics
The debugging macro ‘.Db’ offered by previous versions of mdoc is unavailable in GNU troff(1) since the latter
provides better facilities to check parameters; additionally, groff mdoc implements many error and warning mes‐
sages, making the package more robust and more verbose.
The remaining debugging macro is ‘.Rd’, which dumps the package's global register and string contents to the
standard error stream. A normal user will never need it.
Options
The following groff options set registers (with -r) and strings (with -d) recognized and used by the mdoc macro
package. To ensure rendering consistent with output device capabilities and reader preferences, man pages should
never manipulate them.
Setting string ‘AD’ configures the adjustment mode for most formatted text. Typical values are ‘b’ for adjust‐
ment to both margins (the default), or ‘l’ for left alignment (ragged right margin). Any valid argument to
groff's ‘ad’ request may be used. See groff(7) for less-common choices.
groff -Tutf8 -dAD=l -mdoc groff_mdoc.7 | less -R
Setting register ‘C’ to 1 numbers output pages consecutively, rather than resetting the page number to 1 (or the
value of register ‘P’) with each new mdoc document.
By default, the package inhibits page breaks, headers, and footers in the midst of the document text if it is be‐
ing displayed with a terminal device such as ‘latin1’ or ‘utf8’, to enable more efficient viewing of the page.
This behavior can be changed to format the page as if for 66-line Teletype output by setting the continuous ren‐
dering register ‘cR’ to zero while calling groff(1).
groff -Tlatin1 -rcR=0 -mdoc foo.man > foo.txt
On HTML devices, it cannot be disabled.
Section headings (defined with ‘.Sh’) and page titles in headers (defined with ‘.Dt’) can be presented in full
capitals by setting the registers ‘CS’ and ‘CT’, respectively, to 1. These transformations are off by default
because they discard case distinction information.
Setting register ‘D’ to 1 enables double-sided page layout, which is only distinct when not continuously render‐
ing. It places the page number at the bottom right on odd-numbered (recto) pages, and at the bottom left on
even-numbered (verso) pages, swapping places with the arguments to ‘.Os’.
groff -Tps -rD1 -mdoc foo.man > foo.ps
The value of the ‘FT’ register determines the footer's distance from the page bottom; this amount is always nega‐
tive and should specify a scaling unit. At one half-inch above this location, the page text is broken before
writing the footer. It is ignored if continuous rendering is enabled. The default is -0.5i.
The ‘HF’ string sets the font used for section and subsection headings; the default is ‘B’ (bold style of the de‐
fault family). Any valid argument to groff's ‘ft’ request may be used.
Normally, automatic hyphenation is enabled using a mode appropriate to the groff locale; see section “Localiza‐
tion“ of groff(7). It can be disabled by setting the ‘HY’ register to zero.
groff -Tutf8 -rHY=0 -mdoc foo.man | less -R
The paragraph and subsection heading indentation amounts can be changed by setting the registers ‘IN’ and ‘SN’.
groff -Tutf8 -rIN=5n -rSN=2n -mdoc foo.man | less -R
The default paragraph indentation is 7.2n on typesetters and 7n on terminals. The default subsection heading in‐
dentation amount is 3n; section headings are set with an indentation of zero.
The line and title lengths can be changed by setting the registers ‘LL’ and ‘LT’, respectively:
groff -Tutf8 -rLL=100n -rLT=100n -mdoc foo.man | less -R
If not set, both registers default to 78n for terminal devices and 6.5i otherwise.
Setting the ‘P’ register starts enumeration of pages at its value. The default is 1.
To change the document font size to 11p or 12p, set register ‘S’ accordingly:
groff -Tdvi -rS11 -mdoc foo.man > foo.dvi
Register ‘S’ is ignored when formatting for terminal devices.
Setting the ‘X’ register to a page number p numbers its successors as pa, pb, pc, and so forth. The register
tracking the suffixed page letter uses format ‘a’ (see the ‘af’ request in groff(7)).
Files
/BuggyBox/groff/1.23.0/any/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/andoc.tmac
This brief groff program detects whether the man or mdoc macro package is being used by a document and
loads the correct macro definitions, taking advantage of the fact that pages using them must call TH or
Dd, respectively, before any other macros. A user typing, for example,
groff -mandoc page.1
need not know which package the file page.1 uses. Multiple man pages, in either format, can be handled;
andoc.tmac reloads each macro package as necessary.
/BuggyBox/groff/1.23.0/any/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/doc.tmac
implements the bulk of the groff mdoc package and loads further components as needed from the mdoc subdi‐
rectory.
/BuggyBox/groff/1.23.0/any/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/mdoc.tmac
is a wrapper that loads doc.tmac.
/BuggyBox/groff/1.23.0/any/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/mdoc/doc-common
defines macros, registers, and strings concerned with the production of formatted output. It includes
strings of the form ‘doc-volume-ds-X’ and ‘doc-volume-as-X’ for manual section titles and architecture
identifiers, respectively, where X is an argument recognized by .Dt.
/BuggyBox/groff/1.23.0/any/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/mdoc/doc-nroff
defines parameters appropriate for rendering to terminal devices.
/BuggyBox/groff/1.23.0/any/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/mdoc/doc-ditroff
defines parameters appropriate for rendering to typesetter devices.
/BuggyBox/groff/1.23.0/any/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/mdoc/doc-syms
defines many strings and macros that interpolate formatted text, such as names of operating system re‐
leases, *BSD libraries, and standards documents. The string names are of the form ‘doc-str-O-V’,
‘doc-str-St--S-I’ (observe the double dashes), or ‘doc-str-Lb-L’, where O is one of the operating system
macros from section “General text domain” above, V is an encoding of an operating system release (some‐
times omitted along with the ‘-’ preceding it), S an identifier for a standards body or committee, I one
for an issue of a standard promulgated by S, and L a keyword identifying a *BSD library.
/BuggyBox/groff/1.23.0/any/share/groff/site-tmac/mdoc.local
This file houses local additions and customizations to the package. It can be empty.
See also
The mandoc: https://mandoc.bsd.lv/ project maintains an independent implementation of the mdoc language and a
renderer that directly parses its markup as well as that of man.
groff(1), man(1), troff(1), groff_man(7), mdoc(7)
Bugs
Section 3f has not been added to the header routines.
‘.Fn’ needs to have a check to prevent splitting up the line if its length is too short. Occasionally it sepa‐
rates the last parenthesis, and sometimes looks ridiculous if output lines are being filled.
The list and display macros do not do any keeps and certainly should be able to.
As of groff 1.23, ‘Tn’ no longer changes the type size; this functionality may return in the next release.
groff 1.23.0 2 July 2023 groff_mdoc(7)