'\" m -- preprocess: mdocmx(1)
.\"@ mdocmx.7 - mdocmx(7) reference manual.
.\"@ mdocmx(7) extends the mdoc(7) semantic markup language by references,
.\"@ allowing mdoc(7) to create anchors and table of contents.
.\"
.\" Written 2014 by Steffen (Daode) Nurpmeso <address@hidden>.
.\" Public Domain
.
.Dd December 22, 2014
.Dt MDOCMX 7
.Os
.Mx -enable
.
.Sh NAME
.Nm .Mx
.Nd Reference extension for the mdoc semantic markup language
.
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Fl enable
.Op Ar output-formats
.Pp
.Nm
.Fl disable
.Pp
.Nm
.Nm
.Ar macro
.Nm
.Ar macro Ar key
.Pp
.Bk
.Nm
.Fl toc
.Op Ar output-formats
.Op Fl tree Ar output-formats
.Ek
.
.Mx -toc -tree html xhtml pdf ps
.
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm
introduces referenceable index anchors to the
.Xr mdoc 7
semantic markup language that is used for
.Ux
manual pages.
To enable this extension the standard
.Xr mdoc 7
document prologue \(en
.Ic \&Dd ,
.Ic \&Dt
and
.Ic \&Os
\(en is augmented with the new command
.Nm
.Fl enable .
To restrict usage of the reference extension to special output formats,
add the names of those
.Xr troff 1
output devices for which expansion is desired as further arguments to
.Fl toc ;
for convenience all typewriter-like devices can be addressed via
.Ar tty .
It is not an error to specify a device for which no special
.Xr mdocmx 7
support is available, but such requests are simply ignored.
.
.Pp
Because macros driven by single-pass troff implementations cannot
create forward references
.Xr mdoc 7
documents which use this extension need to be preprocessed with the
.Xr mdocmx 1
preprocessor, which is a regular part of
.Xr mdocmx 7
and implemented in portable
.Xr sh 1
and
.Xr awk 1 .
Specialized manual formatters and macros driven by multi-pass troff
interpreters may not require a preprocessor to support this extension.
It is also possible to preprocess the manual once and distribute the
resulting document \(en refer to the
.Sx COMPATIBILITY
section for more on that.
.
.Pp
Sometimes it may be desirable to actively suppress that any processing
is performed by the
.Xr mdocmx 7
reference extension.
This can either be accomplished by using
.Nm
with the
.Fl disable
argument or by defining the string `mdocmx-disable', as in
.Pp
.Dl < xy.z mdocmx.sh | troff -Tutf8 -mdoc -a -dmdocmx-disable=1
.
.Ss Creating referenceable anchors
After the extension was
.Fl enable Ns
d in the document prologue the third group of
.Nm
usage forms can be used to enqueue index anchor requests.
These requests form a stack which will be consumed (popped) by the
later occurrence of a (corresponding)
.Xr mdoc 7
.Ar macro
which supports referenceable index entries.
The indices are managed with distinct namespaces for each supported
.Ar macro ,
meaning that, e.g., `\&.Mx Ic sendmail' and `\&.Mx Va sendmail'
will create distinct index anchors.
.
.Pp
Using the plain macro
.Nm
without arguments creates a stack entry for which both,
the name of the
.Ar macro
as well as the
.Ar key
will be taken from the document content.
.Nm
.Ar macro
will create a stack entry that will be consumed by the next occurrence of
.Ar macro
only, then taking the
.Ar key
off the document content, whereas
.Nm
.Ar macro Ar key
creates a stack entry that also has its
.Ar key
defined, and which will be consumed once an exactly matching macro / key
pair is seen in the document only.
(The
.Sx EXAMPLES
section gives a use case for this form.)
.
.Pp
Using the
.Xr mdocmx 1
preprocessor will also create referenceable anchors for the
.Xr mdoc 7
section header macros
.Ic .Sh
and
.Ic .Ss ,
so that a
.Xr mdoc 7
macro package which supports the
.Xr mdocmx 7
extension will be enabled to actually create references with the
.Ic .Sx
macro.
The following macros gain support for referenceable anchors via
.Nm :
.Bl -tag -width ".It Ic ._B[10]"
.Mx
.It Ic .Ar
Command argument.
.Mx
.It Ic .Cm
Command modifier.
.Mx
.It Ic .Dv
Defined variable or preprocessor constant.
.Mx
.It Ic .Er
Error constant.
.Mx
.It Ic .Ev
Environment variable.
.Mx
.It Ic .Fl
Command line option (flag).
.Mx
.It Ic .Fn
Function name.
.Mx
.It Ic .Fo
Function name (in function block syntax).
This is mapped to
.Ic .Fn ,
.Ic .Fo
has no index by itself.
.Mx
.It Ic .Ic
Internal or interactive command.
.Mx
.It Ic .Pa
File system path.
.Mx
.It Ic .Va
Variable name.
.El
.
.Ss Creating table of contents
The final usage form of the
.Xr mdocmx 7
reference extension allows the creation of a document table of content,
which is of special interest when converting a
.Xr mdoc 7
document into formats such as HTML, XHTML or PDF.
To restrict the creation of the table of contents to special output
formats, add the names of those
.Xr troff 1
output devices for which expansion is desired as further arguments to
.Fl toc ;
for convenience all typewriter-like devices can be addressed via
.Ar tty .
.
.Pp
By default only
.Ic .Sh
section headers are a vivid part of the TOC;
in order to include
.Ic .Ss
subsections also add a
.Fl tree
argument.
Note that if
.Fl tree
is used in conjunction with output-device restrictions it will only
affect those devices that appear later on the line.
.
.Pp
In the first of the following examples a table of content will be
generated for PDF and typewriter-like devices.
In the second example a tree of contents will instead be generated for
the output formats PDF and HTML, whereas typewriter-like devices will
see a flat table of contents with only section headers.
.
.Pp
.Dl .Mx -toc pdf tty
.Dl .Mx -toc tty -tree html pdf
.
.Sh IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
The
.Nm
request cannot share a line with other macros, neither in the document
prologue nor in its content.
.
.Ss Internal extended synopsis
In addition to those usage forms that have been described above the
.Ic .Mx
multiplexer command also understands further flags and arguments which
are of possible interest for formatter and macro implementors.
These further flags and arguments are only generated by the
.Xr mdocmx 1
preprocessor and are solely ment to communicate the preprocessed state
of the document to the actual consumers.
.
.Pp
For one a
.Fl preprocessed
flag is appended to the single
.Fl enable
command in the document prologue.
And then an additional
.Fl anchor-spass
form is introduced, which takes two or three arguments \(en
the macro (name of the command) for which this defines an anchor as well
as its key, possibly followed by a numeric argument that describes the
relationship in between section headings: for
.Ic .Sh
commands it defines a running one-based index count of section headers,
for
.Ic .Ss
commands it instead specifies the index of the section header they
belong to, therefore creating the possibility to generate TOCs.
.
.Sh EXAMPLES
A complete, but completely fanciful
.Xr mdoc 7
document that uses the
.Xr mdocmx 7
extension would for example be:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
\&.Dd November 8, 2014
\&.Dt MDOCMX-EXAMPLE 7
\&.Os
\&.Mx -enable tty
\&.
\&.Sh NAME
\&.Nm mdocmx-example
\&.Nd An example for the mdocmx mdoc reference extension
\&.Mx -toc
\&.Sh DESCRIPTION
Sors salutis et virtutis michi nunc contraria.
\&.Bl -tag -width ".It Fn _a_e_i_"
\&.Mx
\&.It Ic .Ar
This will create an anchor for a macro `Ic', key `.Ar'.
\&.Mx
\&.It Ic .Cm
Anchor for `Ic', key `.Cm'.
\&.Mx
\&.It Ic .Dv
And an anchor for `Ic', key `.Dv'.
\&.Mx Ic
\&.Mx Ic "final anchor"
\&.Mx Fn _atexit
\&.It Fn exit
No anchor here.
\&.It Fn at_quick_exit , Fn _atexit
Not for the first, but for the second `Fn' there will be an
anchor with the key `_atexit'.
\&.It Ic "no anchor here"
\&.It Ic "final anchor"
Pops the pushed `Ic' / `final anchor' macro / key pair.
\&.It Ic ciao
Pops the `Ic' and assigns the key `Ciao'.
\&.El
.Ed
.
.Sh COMPATIBILITY
Using the
.Xr mdocmx 7
extension in
.Xr mdoc 7
manual pages should not cause any compatibility problems in sofar as
all tested environments silently ignore the unknown commands by default.
Because of this, and due to the nature of this extension, an
interesting, backward as well as forward compatible approach to use
.Xr mdocmx 7
may be to preprocess manuals with
.Xr mdocmx 1
on developer machines and instead distribute the resulting documents.
.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr awk 1 ,
.Xr mandoc 1 ,
.Xr mdocmx 1 ,
.Xr sh 1 ,
.Xr troff 1 ,
.Xr mdoc 7
.
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
environment appeared in 2014.
.
.Sh AUTHORS
Idea and first implementation by
.An Steffen Nurpmeso Aq Mt address@hidden .
Command design by
.An Ingo Schwarze Aq Mt address@hidden .
.
.Sh CAVEATS
Be aware that the content of the
.Fl width
argument to
.Xr mdoc 7
lists etc. is evaluated as if it were normal document content, e.g.,
in `.Bl -tag -width ".It Fn _atexit"' the `Fn _atexit' will be evaluated
and may thus get used by
.Nm .
.
.Pp
When developing a manual it may be helpful to increase verbosity of the
.Xr mdocmx 1
preprocessor on its standard error I/O channel by using the
.Fl v
command line flag in order to get a notion on what is going on:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
$ mdocmx -vv -T Sh < mdocmx.7 2> stderr.txt | \e
  groff -Tutf8 -mdoc | less
$ cat stderr.txt
.Ed
.
.\" s-ts-mode