Re: missing -Tpdf (and the curious case of mandoc_roff(7))

[John Gardner]

>
> Eh?  That's precisely what it is.  It covers matters that are (more or
> less) common to all roff implementations.  Have you looked at it?


Sorry, my wires got crossed. I completely misread this discussion…

I'll see myself out.



On Sun, 30 Jul 2023 at 09:42, G. Branden Robinson <
g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:

> At 2023-07-30T09:35:28+1000, John Gardner wrote:
> [I wrote:]
> > > I wonder why mandoc didn't just call its roff(7) page mandoc(7), given
> > > that it parallels groff(7) more than anything else.
> >
> > Strictly speaking, Groff is at fault here; the manual page dedicated
> > to the Roff language proper should have been named as such,
>
> Eh?  That's precisely what it is.  It covers matters that are (more or
> less) common to all roff implementations.  Have you looked at it?
>
> roff(7)             Miscellaneous Information Manual             roff(7)
>
> Name
>     roff - concepts and history of roff typesetting
>
> Description
>     The term roff denotes a family of document formatting systems known
>     by names like troff, nroff, and ditroff.  A roff system consists of
>     an interpreter for an extensible text formatting language and a set
>     of programs for preparing output for various devices and file
>     formats.  Unix‐like operating systems often distribute a roff
>     system.  The manual pages on Unix systems (“man pages”) and
>     bestselling books on software engineering, including Brian Kernighan
>     and Dennis Ritchie’s The C Programming Language and W. Richard
>     Stevens’s Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment have been
>     written using roff systems.  GNU roff—groff—is arguably the most
>     widespread roff implementation.
>
>     Below we present typographical concepts that form the background of
>     all roff implementations, narrate the development history of some
>     roff systems, detail the command pipeline managed by groff(1),
>     survey the formatting language, suggest tips for editing roff input,
>     and recommend further reading materials.
>
> [...800+ more lines of text follow...]
>
> > whereas groff(1) pertains to an executable.
>
> Yes.  And groff(7) describes the language interpreted by GNU troff(1).
>
> groff_diff(1) covers the differences from CSTR #54.
>
> > So, mandoc's naming is correct nomenclature, IMHO.
>
> If you want to argue that only an equivalent to CSTR #54 deserves the
> roff(7) page, then mandoc(1) doesn't get that any more right than we do.
> And it likely won't, because so many roff language features are beyond
> the scope of that project's mission.
>
> Regards,
> Branden
>