Re: mdoc(7) COMPATIBILITY

[Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@bsd.lv>]

>> That reminds me: can you put a note in mdoc.7 COMPATIBILITY?
> 
> Uh.
> I felt unable to decide where to put it...
> 
> So, here is a proposal to sort that section by macro names,
> to uniformly put these at the beginning of each line,
> in order to make it easier to navigate,
> and to distinguish shortcomings in groff from
> unimplemented features in mandoc.
> 
> I have removed a few entries because they seem untrue or
> irrelevant:
> 
>  - "The comment syntax `\."' is no longer accepted."
>    It is discouraged, but mandoc does accept it.
>  - .Bd -ragged = -filled, -literal = -unfilled
>    I'm not aware of any real difference between groff and mandoc
>    in this respect.
>  - .Cd was restricted to section 4 manuals.
>    .Er was restricted to section 2 manuals.
>    .Ex was restricted to section 1, 6, and 8 manuals.
>    .Rv was restricted to section 2 and 3 manuals.
>    Actually, groff always renders these macros correctly,
>    even though it warns about .Ex and .Rv used elsewhere.
> 
> Of course, i have also added the sentence about spacing in
> .Bd -column, now that it's clear where to put it.  ;-)

Ingo,

I like this approach.  What follows are some further suggestions.

First, there are a few more escapes we ignore; check mandoc.c and/or
out.c for the scoop.

Second, can you treat the man.7 manual the same way?  For consistency.
I'm still on the fence as to whether \f and friends should be in
mandoc_char.7 or something to avoid duplication across man.7 and mdoc.7.

Third, let's make

     -   The \m (font colour), \M (font filling colour), and \s
         (font size) font decoration escapes are all discarded in
         mandoc.
     -   The `f' scaling unit is accepted by mandoc, but rendered as
         the default unit.

so that it's consistently

     -   The \f (font) scaling unit is accepted by mandoc, but
             ^^^^^^^^
         rendered as the default unit.

In general, the escapes are sometimes quoted with e.g. `\f' and
sometimes not.  These should be unified.

I also note, very particularly, that \m and friends are font decorations
but text decorations...

Kristaps
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