Re: [docutils:feature-requests] Re: #72 rst2man: Show reference targets

On man 7 man (AFAIR) is a list of safe statements .sp asf which I tried to
limit the writer output man 7 groff_man I learned only recent

Along the line of the discussion we had with the latex writer … target the
structure or use only the type setting (line drawing)

Structure it was/is

G. Branden Robinson <[email protected]> schrieb am So. 13. Aug.
2023 um 12:11:

> At 2023-08-13T09:30:40-0000, Guenter Milde via Docutils-develop wrote:
> > Hi Branden,
> >
> > welcom to the Docutils developers list.
>
> Thank you!  Glad to be here.
>
> > On 2023-08-12, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> > > 1.  mandoc(1)'s documentation takes a fairly partisan attitude
> > >     toward *roff macro languages; it endorses only mdoc(7),
> > >     deprecates man(7), and makes no attempt to support anything
> > >     else.
> >
> > If I got it right, "mandoc" tries to provide a "semantic markup" layer
> > for man pages.
>
> I don't believe that is correct.  First, there are a couple of things
> called "mandoc".  It is one way to spell a groff(1) (or troff(1), or
> nroff(1)) command-line option and argument combination, as in
>
> groff -mandoc foo.1 bar.2
>
> for example.  This loads a macro file called "andoc.tmac", which uses
> some *roff language features to relieve man(1) programs from having to
> read man page sources to determine which macro language, man(7) or
> mdoc(7), the pages use.  This feature dates back to 1991.
>
> https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/tree/ChangeLog.115#n3526
>
> Around 2008, Kristaps Dzonsons of OpenBSD started the "mdocml" project,
> an effort to replace the groff (and any other troff) formatter for the
> purpose of man page rendering.  In 2009, this project made the decision
> to name its formatter program "mandoc", and apparently later that year
> Ingo Schwarze decided to rename the entire project after the command.
>
> https://mandoc.bsd.lv/devhistory.html
>
> mandoc, in either meaning, is not a macro language specification or a
> semantic markup layer.
>
> mdoc(7), which in its present form originates in 4.3BSD-Reno (1990),[1]
> is an alternative to the man(7) macro language for *roff.  mdoc(7)'s
> emphasis is indeed on semantic markup.
>
> However, mdoc(7) is not purely semantic, and man(7) is not purely
> presentational.
>
> > Docutils aims to provide an alternative easy-to-read semantic markup
> > language for man page sources which works on a wide range of systems.
>
> Acknowledged.
>
> > Sticking to the subset supported by groff, mandoc, and Heirloom
> > Doctools seems to be a reasonable aproach then.
>
> Cool.  That baseline will avoid some headaches and ugliness.  I can help
> with translation to either macro package, but as "rst2man" has "man" in
> its name, and the man(7) and mdoc(7) lexicons cannot be mixed in a
> single document, is it fair to say that Docutils would like to improve
> its production of output in the man(7) language where feasible?
>
> An "rst2mdoc" is, of course, conceivable.
>
> Thank you for putting me in the picture.
>
> Regards,
> Branden
>
> [1] Ingo clarified the history recently for me.  The mdoc(7) in
>     4.3BSD-Reno is actually the third version of the macro language (not
>     counting a few extensions later added by the groff and mdocml/mandoc
>     projects).  The second version is known as "old mdoc" and while
>     groff, at least, still carries support for it, I don't know if any
>     pages in that form of the language survive anywhere.  The first
>     version of mdoc, is, apparently, completely lost.
>
> [2]
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=Net2/usr/src/share/tmac/tmac.doc.old
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