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NAME

macro package

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

The package is a set of content-based and domain-based macros used to format the man pages. The macro names and their meanings are listed below for quick reference; for a detailed explanation on using the package, see the tutorial sampler Note that this is not the usual macro package for Linux documentation, although it is used for documentation of several widely used programs; see The macros are described in two groups, the first includes the structural and physical page layout macros. The second contains the manual and general text domain macros which differentiate the package from other formatting packages.

PAGE STRUCTURE DOMAIN

To create a valid manual page, these three macros, in this order, are required: Document date. Title, in uppercase. Operating system Section headers, paragraph breaks, lists and displays. Section Headers. Valid headers, in the order of presentation: Name section, should include the or and the macros. Usage. General description, should include options and parameters. Sections two and three function calls. Describe environment variables. Files associated with the subject. Examples and suggestions. Normally used for section four device interface diagnostics. Sections two and three error and signal handling. Cross references and citations. Conformance to standards if applicable. If a standard is not applicable, the history of the subject should be given. Gotchas and caveats. Customized headers may be added at the authors discretion. Subsection Headers. Paragraph Break. Vertical space (one line). (D-one) Display-one Indent and display one text line. (D-ell) Display-one literal. Indent and display one line of literal text. Begin-display block. Display options: Unjustified (ragged edges). Justified. Literal text or code. Read in named and display. Offset display. Acceptable values: Align block on left (default). Approximate center margin. Six constant width spaces (a tab). Two tabs. Left aligns block 2 inches from right. Where is a number from to Where is a callable macro name. The width of is used. End-display (matches .Bd). Begin-list. Create lists or columns. Options: (All lists.) See begin-display above. and lists only.) See (All lists.) Suppresses blank lines. End-list. List item.

MANUAL AND GENERAL TEXT DOMAIN MACROS

The manual and general text domain macros are special in that most of them are parsed for callable macros for example: Produces In this example, the option enclosure macro is parsed, and calls the callable content macro which operates on the argument and then calls the callable content macro which operates on the argument Some macros may be callable, but are not parsed and vice versa. These macros are indicated in the and columns below. Unless stated, manual domain macros share a common syntax: Opening and closing punctuation characters are recognized as such only if they are presented one at a time. The string is not recognized as punctuation and will be output with a leading white space and in what ever font the calling macro uses. The argument list is recognized as three sequential closing punctuation characters and a leading white space is not output between the characters and the previous argument (if any). The special meaning of a punctuation character may be escaped with the string For example the following string, Produces Macro names ending in quote remaining items on the argument list. Macro names ending in begin a quote which may span more than one line of input and are close quoted with the matching macro name ending in Enclosure macros may be nested and are limited to eight arguments. Note: the extended argument list macros and the function enclosure macros are irregular. The extended list macros are used when the number of macro arguments would exceed the limitation of nine arguments. The macros UR (starting a URI/URL hypertext reference), UE (ending one), and UN (identifying a target for a reference) are also available. See for more information on these macros.

FILES

Manual and general text domain macros. Common structural macros and definitions. Site dependent style file. Site dependent style file. Special defines (such as the standards macro).

SEE ALSO

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 3.78 of the Linux project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

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