From owner-freebsd-doc Thu Sep 9 3:24:28 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from mpp.pro-ns.net (pppdsle45.mpls.uswest.net [216.160.23.45]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4ADF91508B for ; Thu, 9 Sep 1999 03:24:15 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mpp@mpp.pro-ns.net) Received: (from mpp@localhost) by mpp.pro-ns.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id FAA04335; Thu, 9 Sep 1999 05:23:08 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from mpp) From: Mike Pritchard Message-Id: <199909091023.FAA04335@mpp.pro-ns.net> Subject: Re: Simplest man page source format? In-Reply-To: <19990908214055.A62660@ipass.net> from Randall Hopper at "Sep 8, 1999 09:40:55 pm" To: aa8vb@ipass.net (Randall Hopper) Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 05:23:08 -0500 (CDT) Cc: doc@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL54 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > Hi. I need to write a man page. I've browsed some of the FreeBSD doc > pages, and I have a question that I couldn't quite find the definitive > answer to. What is the simplest supported source format for writing man > pages? > > Is nroff source format (ala man/man*) the best way to go (hope not), or is > there another more-readable and -writable format such as XML (or SGML?) for > which there might be -to-nroff-source conversion support. > > Would appreciate any tips to help stear me in the right direction. All new man pages should be written in with the *roff "mdoc" man package. See "man mdoc" and "mdoc.samples" for a description of the macro package. Also look in /usr/share/examples/mdoc/* for some template man pages for some of the most common man page sections. One requirement is that you shouldn't use any of the *roff directives. You should be able to all of your formatting with the existing mdoc macros. Another way to ease into writing man pages, is to take an existing man page that looks somewhat like what you want your new man page to look like. Then modify that man page to taste. That is the idea behind the templates. -Mike -- Mike Pritchard mpp@FreeBSD.org or mpp@mpp.pro-ns.net To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message