On Thu, Mar 06, 2014 at 11:54:11AM -0500, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> Ingo Schwarze <[email protected]>:
> > The classical man(7) language is a purely presentational language
> > and contains exactly three semantic macros as exceptions: TH, SH, SS.
> > So basically, nothing except titles is semantic in there.
> I'm aware that we're stuck with presentation-level markup in man macros.
I don't see why we are stuck. If there were macros that supported a semantic
representation of the common man page structures they could be added to -man.
I imagine:
.SYNOPSIS
.Command man
.FlagArgOpt C file
.FlagArgOpt d
.FlagArgOpt D
.LongArgOptOpt warnings warnings
. . .
.Option section
.Args page
.Command man
.FlagArg -k
.Option "apropos options"
.Args regexp
:
.DESCRIPTION
.Command man
is the system's manual pager.
Each
.Arg page
argument given to
.Command man
is normally
producing (with appropriate bold and italics)
SYNOPSIS
man [-C file] [-d] [-D] [--warnings[=warnings]] . . .
[section] page ...
man -k [apropos options] regexp ...
. . .
DESCRIPTION
man is the system's manual pager. Each page argument given to man
is normally
. . .
I dare say most people who write man pages copy one that is close enough
to where they think they are going and edit like crazy.
(Start from an empty file? I don't think so.)
Once there are significant number of man pages in that style, the ecology
would slowly change over time.
Maybe within my life time.
Which is quite a thought. I was in my mid-20s with I first encountered UNIX.
--
Mike Bianchi
Foveal Systems
973 822-2085
[email protected]
http://www.AutoAuditorium.com
http://www.FovealMounts.com
