ROFF(7) BSD Miscellaneous Information Manual ROFF(7)NAME
roff — roff language reference for mandoc
DESCRIPTION
The roff language is a general purpose text formatting language. Since
traditional implementations of the mdoc(7) and man(7) manual formatting
languages are based on it, many real-world manuals use small numbers of
roff requests intermixed with their mdoc(7) or man(7) code. To properly
format such manuals, the mandoc(1) utility supports a tiny subset of roff
requests. Only these requests supported by mandoc(1) are documented in
the present manual, together with the basic language syntax shared by
roff, mdoc(7), and man(7). For complete roff manuals, consult the SEE
ALSO section.
Input lines beginning with the control character ‘.’ are parsed for
requests and macros. Such lines are called “request lines” or “macro
lines”, respectively. Requests change the processing state and manipu‐
late the formatting; some macros also define the document structure and
produce formatted output. The single quote ("'") is accepted as an
alternative control character, treated by mandoc(1) just like ‘.’
Lines not beginning with control characters are called “text lines”.
They provide free-form text to be printed; the formatting of the text
depends on the respective processing context.
LANGUAGE SYNTAX
roff documents may contain only graphable 7-bit ASCII characters, the
space character, and, in certain circumstances, the tab character. The
back-space character ‘\’ indicates the start of an escape sequence for
Comments, Special Characters, Predefined Strings, and user-defined
strings defined using the ds request.
Comments
Text following an escaped double-quote ‘\"’, whether in a request, macro,
or text line, is ignored to the end of the line. A request line begin‐
ning with a control character and comment escape ‘.\"’ is also ignored.
Furthermore, request lines with only a control character and optional
trailing whitespace are stripped from input.
Examples:
.\" This is a comment line.
.\" The next line is ignored:
.
.Sh EXAMPLES \" This is a comment, too.
example text \" And so is this.
Special Characters
Special characters are used to encode special glyphs and are rendered
differently across output media. They may occur in request, macro, and
text lines. Sequences begin with the escape character ‘\’ followed by
either an open-parenthesis ‘(’ for two-character sequences; an open-
bracket ‘[’ for n-character sequences (terminated at a close-bracket
‘]’); or a single one character sequence.
Examples:
\(em Two-letter em dash escape.
\e One-letter backslash escape.
See mandoc_char(7) for a complete list.
Text Decoration
Terms may be text-decorated using the ‘\f’ escape followed by an indica‐
tor: B (bold), I (italic), R (regular), or P (revert to previous mode).
A numerical representation 3, 2, or 1 (bold, italic, and regular, respec‐
tively) may be used instead. The indicator or numerical representative
may be preceded by C (constant-width), which is ignored.
Examples:
\fBbold\fR
Write in bold, then switch to regular font mode.
\fIitalic\fP
Write in italic, then return to previous font mode.
Text decoration is not recommended for mdoc(7), which encourages semantic
annotation.
Predefined Strings
Predefined strings, like Special Characters, mark special output glyphs.
Predefined strings are escaped with the slash-asterisk, ‘\*’: single-
character ‘\*X’, two-character ‘\*(XX’, and N-character ‘\*[N]’.
Examples:
\*(Am Two-letter ampersand predefined string.
\*q One-letter double-quote predefined string.
Predefined strings are not recommended for use, as they differ across
implementations. Those supported by mandoc(1) are listed in
mandoc_char(7). Manuals using these predefined strings are almost cer‐
tainly not portable.
Whitespace
Whitespace consists of the space character. In text lines, whitespace is
preserved within a line. In request and macro lines, whitespace delimits
arguments and is discarded.
Unescaped trailing spaces are stripped from text line input unless in a
literal context. In general, trailing whitespace on any input line is
discouraged for reasons of portability. In the rare case that a blank
character is needed at the end of an input line, it may be forced by
‘\ \&’.
Literal space characters can be produced in the output using escape
sequences. In macro lines, they can also be included in arguments using
quotation; see MACRO SYNTAX for details.
Blank text lines, which may include whitespace, are only permitted within
literal contexts. If the first character of a text line is a space, that
line is printed with a leading newline.
Scaling Widths
Many requests and macros support scaled widths for their arguments. The
syntax for a scaled width is ‘[+-]?[0-9]*.[0-9]*[:unit:]’, where a deci‐
mal must be preceded or followed by at least one digit. Negative num‐
bers, while accepted, are truncated to zero.
The following scaling units are accepted:
c centimetre
i inch
P pica (~1/6 inch)
p point (~1/72 inch)
f synonym for ‘u’
v default vertical span
m width of rendered ‘m’ (em) character
n width of rendered ‘n’ (en) character
u default horizontal span
M mini-em (~1/100 em)
Using anything other than ‘m’, ‘n’, ‘u’, or ‘v’ is necessarily non-porta‐
ble across output media. See COMPATIBILITY.
If a scaling unit is not provided, the numerical value is interpreted
under the default rules of ‘v’ for vertical spaces and ‘u’ for horizontal
ones.
Examples:
.Bl -tag -width 2i
two-inch tagged list indentation in mdoc(7)
.HP 2i
two-inch tagged list indentation in man(7)
.sp 2v
two vertical spaces
Sentence Spacing
Each sentence should terminate at the end of an input line. By doing
this, a formatter will be able to apply the proper amount of spacing
after the end of sentence (unescaped) period, exclamation mark, or ques‐
tion mark followed by zero or more non-sentence closing delimiters (‘)’,
‘]’, ‘'’, ‘"’).
The proper spacing is also intelligently preserved if a sentence ends at
the boundary of a macro line.
Examples:
Do not end sentences mid-line like this. Instead,
end a sentence like this.
A macro would end like this:
.Xr mandoc 1 .
REQUEST SYNTAX
A request or macro line consists of:
1. the control character ‘.’ or ‘'’ at the beginning of the line,
2. optionally an arbitrary amount of whitespace,
3. the name of the request or the macro, which is one word of arbitrary
length, terminated by whitespace,
4. and zero or more arguments delimited by whitespace.
Thus, the following request lines are all equivalent:
.ig end
.ig end
. ig end
MACRO SYNTAX
Macros are provided by the mdoc(7) and man(7) languages and can be
defined by the de request. When called, they follow the same syntax as
requests, except that macro arguments may optionally be quoted by enclos‐
ing them in double quote characters (‘"’). Quoted text, even if it con‐
tains whitespace or would cause a macro invocation when unquoted, is
always considered literal text. Inside quoted text, pairs of double
quote characters (‘""’) resolve to single double quote characters.
To be recognised as the beginning of a quoted argument, the opening quote
character must be preceded by a space character. A quoted argument
extends to the next double quote character that is not part of a pair, or
to the end of the input line, whichever comes earlier. Leaving out the
terminating double quote character at the end of the line is discouraged.
For clarity, if more arguments follow on the same input line, it is rec‐
ommended to follow the terminating double quote character by a space
character; in case the next character after the terminating double quote
character is anything else, it is regarded as the beginning of the next,
unquoted argument.
Both in quoted and unquoted arguments, pairs of backslashes (‘\\’)
resolve to single backslashes. In unquoted arguments, space characters
can alternatively be included by preceding them with a backslash (‘\ ’),
but quoting is usually better for clarity.
Examples:
.Fn strlen "const char *s"
Group arguments "const char *s" into one function argument.
If unspecified, "const", "char", and "*s" would be consid‐
ered separate arguments.
.Op "Fl a"
Consider "Fl a" as literal text instead of a flag macro.
REQUEST REFERENCE
The mandoc(1) roff parser recognises the following requests. Note that
the roff language defines many more requests not implemented in
mandoc(1).
ad
Set line adjustment mode. This line-scoped request is intended to have
one argument to select normal, left, right, or centre adjustment for sub‐
sequent text. Currently, it is ignored including its arguments, and the
number of arguments is not checked.
am
Append to a macro definition. The syntax of this request is the same as
that of de. It is currently ignored by mandoc(1), as are its children.
ami
Append to a macro definition, specifying the macro name indirectly. The
syntax of this request is the same as that of dei. It is currently
ignored by mandoc(1), as are its children.
am1
Append to a macro definition, switching roff compatibility mode off dur‐
ing macro execution. The syntax of this request is the same as that of
de1. It is currently ignored by mandoc(1), as are its children.
de
Define a roff macro. Its syntax can be either
.de name
macro definition
..
or
.de name end
macro definition
.end
Both forms define or redefine the macro name to represent the macro
definition, which may consist of one or more input lines, including the
newline characters terminating each line, optionally containing calls to
roff requests, roff macros or high-level macros like man(7) or mdoc(7)
macros, whichever applies to the document in question.
Specifying a custom end macro works in the same way as for ig; namely,
the call to ‘.end’ first ends the macro definition, and after that, it is
also evaluated as a roff request or roff macro, but not as a high-level
macro.
The macro can be invoked later using the syntax
.name [argument [argument ...]]
Regarding argument parsing, see MACRO SYNTAX above.
The line invoking the macro will be replaced in the input stream by the
macro definition, replacing all occurrences of \\$N, where N is a digit,
by the Nth argument. For example,
.de ZN
\fI\^\\$1\^\fP\\$2
..
.ZN XtFree .
produces
\fI\^XtFree\^\fP.
in the input stream, and thus in the output: XtFree.
Since macros and user-defined strings share a common string table, defin‐
ing a macro name clobbers the user-defined string name, and the macro
definition can also be printed using the ‘\*’ string interpolation syntax
described below ds, but this is rarely useful because every macro defini‐
tion contains at least one explicit newline character.
In order to prevent endless recursion, both groff and mandoc(1) limit the
stack depth for expanding macros and strings to a large, but finite num‐
ber. Do not rely on the exact value of this limit.
dei
Define a roff macro, specifying the macro name indirectly. The syntax of
this request is the same as that of de. It is currently ignored by
mandoc(1), as are its children.
de1
Define a roff macro that will be executed with roff compatibility mode
switched off during macro execution. This is a GNU extension not avail‐
able in traditional roff implementations and not even in older versions
of groff. Since mandoc(1) does not implement roff compatibility mode at
all, it handles this request as an alias for de.
ds
Define a user-defined string. Its syntax is as follows:
.ds name ["]string
The name and string arguments are space-separated. If the string begins
with a double-quote character, that character will not be part of the
string. All remaining characters on the input line form the string,
including whitespace and double-quote characters, even trailing ones.
The string can be interpolated into subsequent text by using \*[name] for
a name of arbitrary length, or \*(NN or \*N if the length of name is two
or one characters, respectively. Interpolation can be prevented by
escaping the leading backslash; that is, an asterisk preceded by an even
number of backslashes does not trigger string interpolation.
Since user-defined strings and macros share a common string table, defin‐
ing a string name clobbers the macro name, and the name used for defining
a string can also be invoked as a macro, in which case the following
input line will be appended to the string, forming a new input line
passed to the roff parser. For example,
.ds badidea .S
.badidea
H SYNOPSIS
invokes the SH macro when used in a man(7) document. Such abuse is of
course strongly discouraged.
el
The "else" half of an if/else conditional. Pops a result off the stack
of conditional evaluations pushed by ie and uses it as its conditional.
If no stack entries are present (e.g., due to no prior ie calls) then
false is assumed. The syntax of this request is similar to if except
that the conditional is missing.
EN
End an equation block. See EQ.
EQ
Begin an equation block. See eqn(7) for a description of the equation
language.
hy
Set automatic hyphenation mode. This line-scoped request is currently
ignored.
ie
The "if" half of an if/else conditional. The result of the conditional
is pushed into a stack used by subsequent invocations of el, which may be
separated by any intervening input (or not exist at all). Its syntax is
equivalent to if.
if
Begins a conditional. Right now, the conditional evaluates to true if
and only if it starts with the letter n, indicating processing in nroff
style as opposed to troff style. If a conditional is false, its children
are not processed, but are syntactically interpreted to preserve the
integrity of the input document. Thus,
.if t .ig
will discard the ‘.ig’, which may lead to interesting results, but
.if t .if t \{\
will continue to syntactically interpret to the block close of the final
conditional. Sub-conditionals, in this case, obviously inherit the truth
value of the parent. This request has the following syntax:
.if COND \{\
BODY...
.\}
.if COND \{ BODY
BODY... \}
.if COND \{ BODY
BODY...
.\}
.if COND \
BODY
COND is a conditional statement. roff allows for complicated condition‐
als; mandoc is much simpler. At this time, mandoc supports only ‘n’,
evaluating to true; and ‘t’, ‘e’, and ‘o’, evaluating to false. All
other invocations are read up to the next end of line or space and evalu‐
ate as false.
If the BODY section is begun by an escaped brace ‘\{’, scope continues
until a closing-brace escape sequence ‘.\}’. If the BODY is not enclosed
in braces, scope continues until the end of the line. If the COND is
followed by a BODY on the same line, whether after a brace or not, then
requests and macros must begin with a control character. It is generally
more intuitive, in this case, to write
.if COND \{\
.foo
bar
.\}
than having the request or macro follow as
.if COND \{ .foo
The scope of a conditional is always parsed, but only executed if the
conditional evaluates to true.
Note that the ‘\}’ is converted into a zero-width escape sequence if not
passed as a standalone macro ‘.\}’. For example,
.Fl a \} b
will result in ‘\}’ being considered an argument of the ‘Fl’ macro.
ig
Ignore input. Its syntax can be either
.ig
ignored text
..
or
.ig end
ignored text
.end
In the first case, input is ignored until a ‘..’ request is encountered
on its own line. In the second case, input is ignored until the speci‐
fied ‘.end’ macro is encountered. Do not use the escape character ‘\’
anywhere in the definition of end; it would cause very strange behaviour.
When the end macro is a roff request or a roff macro, like in
.ig if
the subsequent invocation of if will first terminate the ignored text,
then be invoked as usual. Otherwise, it only terminates the ignored
text, and arguments following it or the ‘..’ request are discarded.
ne
Declare the need for the specified minimum vertical space before the next
trap or the bottom of the page. This line-scoped request is currently
ignored.
nh
Turn off automatic hyphenation mode. This line-scoped request is cur‐
rently ignored.
rm
Remove a request, macro or string. This request is intended to have one
argument, the name of the request, macro or string to be undefined. Cur‐
rently, it is ignored including its arguments, and the number of argu‐
ments is not checked.
nr
Define a register. A register is an arbitrary string value that defines
some sort of state, which influences parsing and/or formatting. Its syn‐
tax is as follows:
.nr name value
The value may, at the moment, only be an integer. So far, only the fol‐
lowing register name is recognised:
nS If set to a positive integer value, certain mdoc(7) macros will
behave in the same way as in the SYNOPSIS section. If set to 0,
these macros will behave in the same way as outside the SYNOPSIS
section, even when called within the SYNOPSIS section itself.
Note that starting a new mdoc(7) section with the Sh macro will
reset this register.
ns
Turn on no-space mode. This line-scoped request is intended to take no
arguments. Currently, it is ignored including its arguments, and the
number of arguments is not checked.
ps
Change point size. This line-scoped request is intended to take one
numerical argument. Currently, it is ignored including its arguments,
and the number of arguments is not checked.
so
Include a source file. Its syntax is as follows:
.so file
The file will be read and its contents processed as input in place of the
‘.so’ request line. To avoid inadvertent inclusion of unrelated files,
mandoc(1) only accepts relative paths not containing the strings "../"
and "/..".
This request requires man(1) to change to the right directory before
calling mandoc(1), per convention to the root of the manual tree. Typi‐
cal usage looks like:
.so man3/Xcursor.3
As the whole concept is rather fragile, the use of so is discouraged.
Use ln(1) instead.
ta
Set tab stops. This line-scoped request can take an arbitrary number of
arguments. Currently, it is ignored including its arguments.
tr
Output character translation. Its syntax is as follows:
.tr [ab]+
Pairs of ab characters are replaced (a for b). Replacement (or origin)
characters may also be character escapes; thus,
tr \(xx\(yy
replaces all invocations of \(xx with \(yy.
T&
Re-start a table layout, retaining the options of the prior table invoca‐
tion. See TS.
TE
End a table context. See TS.
TS
Begin a table, which formats input in aligned rows and columns. See
tbl(7) for a description of the tbl language.
COMPATIBILITY
This section documents compatibility between mandoc and other other roff
implementations, at this time limited to GNU troff ("groff"). The term
"historic groff" refers to groff version 1.15.
- In mandoc, the EQ, TE, TS, and T&, macros are considered regular
macros. In all other roff implementations, these are special macros
that must be specified without spacing between the control character
(which must be a period) and the macro name.
- The nS register is only compatible with OpenBSD's groff-1.15.
- Historic groff did not accept white-space before a custom end macro
for the ig request.
- The if and family would print funny white-spaces with historic groff
when using the next-line syntax.
SEE ALSOmandoc(1), eqn(7), man(7), mandoc_char(7), mdoc(7), tbl(7)
Joseph F. Ossanna and Brian W. Kernighan, Troff User's Manual, AT&T Bell
Laboratories, Computing Science Technical Report, 54,
http://www.kohala.com/start/troff/cstr54.ps, 1976 and 1992.
Joseph F. Ossanna, Brian W. Kernighan, and Gunnar Ritter, Heirloom
Documentation Tools Nroff/Troff User's Manual,
http://heirloom.sourceforge.net/doctools/troff.pdf, September 17, 2007.
HISTORY
The RUNOFF typesetting system, whose input forms the basis for roff, was
written in MAD and FAP for the CTSS operating system by Jerome E.
Saltzer in 1964. Doug McIlroy rewrote it in BCPL in 1969, renaming it
roff. Dennis M. Ritchie rewrote McIlroy's roff in PDP-11 assembly for
Version 1 AT&T UNIX, Joseph F. Ossanna improved roff and renamed it nroff
for Version 2 AT&T UNIX, then ported nroff to C as troff, which Brian W.
Kernighan released with Version 7 AT&T UNIX. In 1989, James Clarke re-
implemented troff in C++, naming it groff.
AUTHORS
This roff reference was written by Kristaps Dzonsons, kristaps@bsd.lv;
and Ingo Schwarze, schwarze@openbsd.org.
BSD December 11, 2011 BSD
