Index: head/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/manpages/chapter.xml =================================================================== --- head/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/manpages/chapter.xml (revision 50999) +++ head/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/manpages/chapter.xml (revision 51000) @@ -1,718 +1,718 @@ Manual Pages Introduction Manual pages, commonly shortened to man pages, were conceived as readily-available reminders for command syntax, device driver details, or configuration file formats. They have become an extremely valuable quick-reference from the command line for users, system administrators, and programmers. Although intended as reference material rather than tutorials, the EXAMPLES sections of manual pages often provide detailed use case. Manual pages are generally shown interactively by the &man.man.1; command. When the user types man ls, a search is performed for a manual page matching ls. The first matching result is displayed. Sections Manual pages are grouped into sections. Each section contains manual pages for a specific category of documentation: Section Number Category 1 General Commands 2 System Calls 3 Library Functions 4 Kernel Interfaces 5 File Formats 6 Games 7 Miscellaneous 8 System Manager 9 Kernel Developer Markup Various markup forms and rendering programs have been used for manual pages. &os; has used &man.groff.7; and the newer - &man.mandoc.1;. Most existing &os; manual pages, and all new + &man.mandoc.1;. Most existing &os; manual pages, and all new ones, use the &man.mdoc.7; form of markup. This is a simple line-based markup that is reasonably expressive. It is mostly semantic: parts of text are marked up for what they are, rather than for they should appear when rendered. There is some appearance-based markup which is usually best avoided. Manual page source is usually interpreted and displayed to - the screen interactively. The source files can be ordinary text + the screen interactively. The source files can be ordinary text files or compressed with &man.gzip.1; to save space. Manual pages can also be rendered to other formats, including PostScript for printing or PDF generation. See &man.man.1;. Testing a new manual page can be challenging when it is not located in the normal manual page search path. &man.man.1; also does not look in the current directory. If the new manual page is in the current directory, prefix the filename with a ./: &prompt.user; man ./mynewmanpage.8 An absolute path can also be used: &prompt.user; man /home/xsmith/mynewmanpage.8 Manual Page Sections Manual pages are composed of several standard sections. Each section has a title in upper case, and the sections for a particular type of manual page appear in a specific order. For a category 1 General Command manual page, the sections are: Section Name Description NAME Name of the command SYNOPSIS Format of options and arguments DESCRIPTION Description of purpose and usage ENVIRONMENT Environment settings that affect operation EXIT STATUS Error codes returned on exit EXAMPLES Examples of usage COMPATIBILITY Compatibility with other implementations SEE ALSO Cross-reference to related manual pages STANDARDS Compatibility with standards like POSIX HISTORY History of implementation BUGS Known bugs AUTHORS People who created the command or wrote the manual page. Some sections are optional, and the combination of sections for a specific type of manual page vary. Examples of the most common types are shown later in this chapter. Macros &man.mdoc.7; markup is based on macros. Lines that begin with a dot contain macro commands, each two or three letters long. For example, consider this portion of the &man.ls.1; manual page: .Dd December 1, 2015 .Dt LS 1 .Sh NAME .Nm ls .Nd list directory contents .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm .Op Fl -libxo .Op Fl ABCFGHILPRSTUWZabcdfghiklmnopqrstuwxy1, .Op Fl D Ar format .Op Ar .Sh DESCRIPTION For each operand that names a .Ar file of a type other than directory, .Nm displays its name as well as any requested, associated information. For each operand that names a .Ar file of type directory, .Nm displays the names of files contained within that directory, as well as any requested, associated information. A Document date and Document title are defined. A Section header for the NAME section is defined. Then the Name of the command and a one-line Name description are defined. The SYNOPSIS section begins. This section describes the command-line options and arguments accepted. Name (.Nm) has already been defined, and repeating it here just displays the defined value in the text. An Optional Flag called -libxo is shown. The Fl macro adds a dash to the beginning of flags, so this appears in the manual page as --libxo. A long list of optional single-character flags are shown. - An optional -D flag is defined. If + An optional -D flag is defined. If the -D flag is given, it must be followed by an Argument. The argument is a format, a string that tells &man.ls.1; what to display and how to display it. Details on the format string are given later in the manual page. A final optional argument is defined. Because no name is specified for the argument, the default of file ... is used. The Section header for the DESCRIPTION section is defined. When rendered with the command man ls, the result displayed on the screen looks like this: LS(1) FreeBSD General Commands Manual LS(1) NAME ls — list directory contents SYNOPSIS ls [--libxo] [-ABCFGHILPRSTUWZabcdfghiklmnopqrstuwxy1,] [-D format] [file ...] DESCRIPTION For each operand that names a file of a type other than directory, ls displays its name as well as any requested, associated information. For each operand that names a file of type directory, ls displays the names of files contained within that directory, as well as any requested, associated information. Optional values are shown inside square brackets. Markup Guidelines The &man.mdoc.7; markup language is not very strict. For clarity and consistency, the &os; Documentation project adds some additional style guidelines: Only the first letter of macros is upper case Always use upper case for the first letter of a macro and lower case for the remaining letters. Begin new sentences on new lines Start a new sentence on a new line, do not begin it on the same line as an existing sentence. Update .Dd when making non-trivial changes to a manual page The Document date informs the reader about the last time the manual page was updated. It is important to update whenever non-trivial changes are made to the manual pages. Trivial changes like spelling or punctuation fixes that do not affect usage can be made without updating .Dd. Give examples Show the reader examples when possible. Even trivial examples are valuable, because what is trivial to the writer is not necessarily trivial to the reader. Three examples are a good goal. A trivial example shows the minimal requirements, a serious example shows actual use, and an in-depth example demonstrates unusual or non-obvious functionality. Include the BSD license - Include the BSD license on new manual pages. The + Include the BSD license on new manual pages. The preferred license is available from the Committer's Guide. Markup Tricks Add a space before punctuation on a line with macros. Example: .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr geom 4 , .Xr boot0cfg 8 , .Xr geom 8 , .Xr gptboot 8 Note how the commas at the end of the .Xr lines have been placed after a space. The .Xr macro expects two parameters to follow it, the name of an external manual page, and a section - number. The space separates the punctuation from the section + number. The space separates the punctuation from the section number. Without the space, the external links would incorrectly point to section 4, or 8,. Important Macros Some very common macros will be shown here. For more usage examples, see &man.mdoc.7;, &man.groff.mdoc.7;, or search for actual use in /usr/share/man/man* directories. For example, to search for examples of the .Bd Begin display macro: &prompt.user; find /usr/share/man/man* | xargs zgrep '.Bd' Organizational Macros Some macros are used to define logical blocks of a manual page. Organizational Macro Use .Sh Section header. Followed by the name of the section, traditionally all upper case. Think of these as chapter titles. .Ss Subsection header. Followed by the name of the subsection. Used to divide a .Sh section into subsections. .Bl Begin list. Start a list of items. .El End a list. .Bd Begin display. Begin a special area of text, like an indented area. .Ed End display. Inline Macros Many macros are used to mark up inline text. Inline Macro Use .Nm Name. Called with a name as a parameter on the first use, then used later without the parameter to display the name that has already been defined. .Pa Path to a file. Used to mark up filenames and directory paths. Sample Manual Page Structures This section shows minimal desired man page contents for several common categories of manual pages. Section 1 or 8 Command The preferred basic structure for a section 1 or 8 command: .Dd August 25, 2017 .Dt EXAMPLECMD 8 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm examplecmd .Nd "command to demonstrate section 1 and 8 man pages" .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm .Op Fl v .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm utility does nothing except demonstrate a trivial but complete manual page for a section 1 or 8 command. .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr exampleconf 5 .Sh AUTHORS .An Firstname Lastname Aq Mt flastname@example.com Section 4 Device Driver The preferred basic structure for a section 4 device driver: .Dd August 25, 2017 .Dt EXAMPLEDRIVER 4 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm exampledriver .Nd "driver to demonstrate section 4 man pages" .Sh SYNOPSIS To compile this driver into the kernel, add this line to the kernel configuration file: .Bd -ragged -offset indent .Cd "device exampledriver" .Ed .Pp To load the driver as a module at boot, add this line to .Xr loader.conf 5 : .Bd -literal -offset indent exampledriver_load="YES" .Ed .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm driver provides an opportunity to show a skeleton or template file for section 4 manual pages. .Sh HARDWARE The .Nm driver supports these cards from the aptly-named Nonexistent Technologies: .Pp .Bl -bullet -compact .It NT X149.2 (single and dual port) .It NT X149.8 (single port) .El .Sh DIAGNOSTICS .Bl -diag .It "flashing green light" Something bad happened. .It "flashing red light" Something really bad happened. .It "solid black light" Power cord is unplugged. .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr example 8 .Sh HISTORY The .Nm device driver first appeared in .Fx 49.2 . .Sh AUTHORS .An Firstname Lastname Aq Mt flastname@example.com Section 5 Configuration File The preferred basic structure for a section 5 configuration file: .Dd August 25, 2017 .Dt EXAMPLECONF 5 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm example.conf .Nd "config file to demonstrate section 5 man pages" .Sh DESCRIPTION .Nm is an example configuration file. .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr example 8 .Sh AUTHORS .An Firstname Lastname Aq Mt flastname@example.com Example Manual Pages to Use as Templates Some manual pages are suitable as in-depth examples. Manual Page Path to Source Location &man.cp.1; /usr/src/bin/cp/cp.1 &man.vt.4; /usr/src/share/man/man4/vt.4 &man.crontab.5; /usr/src/usr.sbin/cron/crontab/crontab.5 &man.gpart.8; /usr/src/sbin/geom/class/part/gpart.8 Resources Resources for manual page writers: &man.man.1; &man.mandoc.1; &man.groff.mdoc.7; Practical + xlink:href="http://manpages.bsd.lv/mdoc.html">Practical UNIX Manuals: mdoc History + xlink:href="http://manpages.bsd.lv/history.html">History of UNIX Manpages