Ingo Schwarze <[email protected]> writes: [...]
> Also note that the mdoc(7) and man(7) languages are completely > distinct, they do not have a single common macro. Well, roff(7) > requests can be used in both, but that's bad style in the first > place. > > So, rewriting man(7) to mdoc(7) usually requires to change every > single macro, and it usually requires adding several macros to > the source code. It's more like rewriting the manual, not just > like sprinkling a few changes. Indeed. I'm currently converting the ratpoison[1] manpage to mdoc, it's a pita. (BTW Ingo if you want to take a look at the manpage and the macros used there, just pkg_add ratpoison. I don't know much about man / roff macros) > In one single port, provided that you cooperate closely with > upstream, they like the idea, and you know what you are doing? > Yes. > > However, if upstream wants to provide manuals for Solaris clones, > they will need to do automatic mdoc(7) to man(7) conversions > using mandoc -mdoc -Tman in the tarball build system, like > portable sudo(1) does. That works quite well now, but requires > mandoc in the tarball build system, so some upstream projects > may not like the idea. Grumpf, I didn't know that... >> Is that generally >> possible? Is an mdoc(7) manpage, when written >> with compatibility in mind, acceptable for upstream >> that originaly wrote the manpage for groff? > > That depends on the taste of the upstream developers. > I think moving from man(7) to mdoc(7) and using -Tman > makes manuals better, but some upstream projects will > certainly disagree - or simply not care at all. I'm the current ratpoison maintainer, and I sure do care about manpages quality, that's why I wanted to convert to mdoc. But I had not thought that portability would be an issue. [1] http://ratpoison.nongnu.org/ -- Jérémie Courrèges-Anglas PGP Key fingerprint: 61DB D9A0 00A4 67CF 2A90 8961 6191 8FBF 06A1 1494
