From owner-freebsd-hackers  Thu Mar  7 01:08:16 1996
Return-Path: owner-hackers
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id BAA21073
          for hackers-outgoing; Thu, 7 Mar 1996 01:08:16 -0800 (PST)
Received: from nixpbe.pdb.sni.de (mail.sni.de [192.109.2.33])
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id BAA21066
          for <freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>; Thu, 7 Mar 1996 01:08:10 -0800 (PST)
Received: (from nerv@localhost) by nixpbe.pdb.sni.de (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA16982 for freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG; Thu, 7 Mar 1996 10:07:49 +0100
Message-Id: <199603070907.KAA16982@nixpbe.pdb.sni.de>
Subject: Re: man page hacking
To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 96 10:04:17 MET
From: Greg Lehey <lehey.pad@sni.de>
Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG (FreeBSD hackers),
        freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG (FreeBSD Documenters)
In-Reply-To: <199603062310.AAA13045@uriah.heep.sax.de>; from "J Wunsch" at Mar 7, 96 12:10 am
X-Mailer: xmail 2.4 (based on ELM 2.2 PL16)
Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Precedence: bulk

> As Don Yuniskis wrote:
>
>> I'm trying to repair some existing and create some new
>> man pages.  But the macros are pretty much alphabet soup!
>> Can someone point me to a description of those used in man
>> pages?
>
> RTFM :-)

Where?

> j@uriah 227% apropos mdoc
> mdoc(7)                  - quick reference guide for the -mdoc macro package
> mdoc.samples(7)          - tutorial sampler for writing  manuals with -mdoc

That's only part of the story.  A large number of man pages are
written with the an (-man) macros, and I haven't been able to find any
documentation for them either (on any platform, for that matter).

FWIW, you can format all man pages with the andoc (-mandoc) macros.
andoc decides whether they're in an or doc format, and loads the
appropriate macros.

Greg