SCDOC
Section: Misc. Reference Manual Pages (5)
Updated: 202-0-23
Index
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NAME
scdoc- document format for writing manual pages
SYNTAX
Input files must use the UT-8 encoding.
Preamble
Each scdoc file must begin with the following preamble:
-
NAME(section) ["left_footer" ["center_header"]]
NAME is the name of the man page you are writing, and
section is the section
you're writing for (see
man(1) for information on manual sections).
left_footer and center_header are optional arguments which set the text
positioned at those locations in the generated man page, and must be
surrounded with double quotes.
Section headers
Each section of your man page should begin with something similar to the
following:
-
# HEADER NAME
Subsection headers are also understood- use two hashes. Each header must have
an empty line on either side.
Paragraphs
Begin a new paragraph with an empty line.
Line breaks
Insert a line break by ending a line with ++.
The result looks
like this.
Formatting
Text can be made bold or underlined with asterisks and underscores: *bold*
or _underlined_. Underscores in the_middle_of_words will be disregarded.
Indentation
You may indent lines with tab characters (t) to indent them by 4 spaces in
the output. Indented lines may not contain headers.
-
The result looks something like this.
You may use multiple lines and most formatting.
Deindent to return to normal, or indent again to increase your indentation
depth.
Lists
You may start bulleted lists with dashes -), like so:
- - Item 1- Item 2
- Subitem 1
- Subitem 2- Item 3
The result looks like this:
- *
-
Item 1
- *
-
Item 2
-
- *
-
Subitem 1
- *
-
Subitem 2
- *
-
Item 3
You may also extend long entries onto another line by giving it the same indent
level, plus two spaces. They will be rendered as a single list entry.
- - Item 1 is pretty long so let's
break it up onto two lines- Item 2 is shorter
- But its children can go on
for a while
- *
-
Item 1 is pretty long so let's
break it up onto two lines
- *
-
Item 2 is shorter
-
- *
-
But its children can go on
for a while
Numbered lists
Numbered lists are similar to normal lists, but begin with periods (.) instead
of dashes -), like so:
- . Item 1
. Item 2
. Item 3,
with multiple lines
- 1.
-
Item 1
- 2.
-
Item 2
- 3.
-
Item 3,
with multiple lines
Tables
To begin a table, add an empty line followed by any number of rows.
Each line of a table should start with | or : to start a new row or column
respectively (or space to continue the previous cell on multiple lines),
followed by [ or- or ] to align the contents to the left, center, or right,
followed by a space and the contents of that cell. You may use a space instead
of an alignment specifier to inherit the alignment of the same column in the
previous row. Each row must have the same number of columns; empty columns are
permitted.
The first character of the first row is not limited to | and has special
meaning. [ will produce a table with borders around each cell. | will produce a
table with no borders. ] will produce a table with one border around the whole
table.
To conclude your table, add an empty line after the last row.
- [[ *Foo*
- _Bar_
-
| *Row 1*
: Hello
:] world!
| *Row 2*
: こんにちは
: 世界
!
|
Foo
|
Bar
|
| | |
|
|
Row 1
|
Hello
|
world!
|
|
Row 2
|
こんにちは
|
世界 !
|
You may also cause columns to expand to fill the available space with < (left
align), = (center align), and > (right align), like so:
- [[ *Normal column*
:< Expanded column
| *Foo*
: Bar
|
Normal column
|
Expanded column
| | |
|
|
Foo
|
Bar
|
Literal text
You may turn off scdoc formatting and output literal text with escape codes and
literal blocks. Inserting a into your source will cause the subsequent symbol
to be treated as a literal and copied directly to the output. You may also make
blocks of literal syntax like so:
- ```
_This formatting_ will *not* be interpreted by scdoc.
```
These blocks will be indented one level. Note that literal text is shown
literally in the man viewer- that is, it's not a means for inserting your own
roff macros into the output. Note that is still interpreted within literal
blocks, which for example can be useful to output ``` inside of a literal
block.
Comments
Lines beginning with ; and a space are ignored.
- ; This is a comment
CONVENTIONS
By convention, all scdoc documents should be hard wrapped at 80 columns.
SEE ALSO
scdoc(1)
AUTHORS
Maintained by Drew DeVault <sir@cmpwn.com>. U-t-date sources can be found at
https://git.sr.ht/tisircmpwn/scdoc and bugs/patches can be submitted by email to
tisircmpwn/publi-inbox@lists.sr.ht.
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNTAX
-
- Preamble
-
- Section headers
-
- Paragraphs
-
- Line breaks
-
- Formatting
-
- Indentation
-
- Lists
-
- Numbered lists
-
- Tables
-
- Literal text
-
- Comments
-
- CONVENTIONS
-
- SEE ALSO
-
- AUTHORS
-
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|
- Running on 
-
:
