Messages displayed by mandoc follow this format:
mandoc: file:line:column: level: message: macroarguments (os)
The first three fields identify the file name, line number, and column number of the input file where the
message was triggered. The line and column numbers start at 1. Both are omitted for messages referring
to an input file as a whole. All level and message strings are explained below. The name of the macro
triggering the message and its arguments are omitted where meaningless. The os operating system
specifier is omitted for messages that are relevant for all operating systems. Fatal messages about
invalid command line arguments or operating system errors, for example when memory is exhausted, may also
omit the file and level fields.
Message levels have the following meanings:
syserr An operating system error occurred. There isn't necessarily anything wrong with the input
files. Output may all the same be missing or incomplete.
badarg Invalid command line arguments were specified. No input files have been read and no output is
produced.
unsupp An input file uses unsupported low-level roff(7) features. The output may be incomplete and/or
misformatted, so using GNU troff instead of mandoc to process the file may be preferable.
error Indicates a risk of information loss or severe misformatting, in most cases caused by serious
syntax errors.
warning Indicates a risk that the information shown or its formatting may mismatch the author's intent
in minor ways. Additionally, syntax errors are classified at least as warnings, even if they do
not usually cause misformatting.
style An input file uses dubious or discouraged style. This is not a complaint about the syntax, and
probably neither formatting nor portability are in danger. While great care is taken to avoid
false positives on the higher message levels, the style level tries to reduce the probability
that issues go unnoticed, so it may occasionally issue bogus suggestions. Please use your good
judgement to decide whether any particular style suggestion really justifies a change to the
input file.
base A convention used in the base system of a specific operating system is not adhered to. These
are not markup mistakes, and neither the quality of formatting nor portability are in danger.
Messages of the base level are printed with the more intuitive stylelevel tag.
Messages of the base, style, warning, error, and unsupp levels are hidden unless their level, or a lower
level, is requested using a -W option or -Tlint output mode.
As indicated below, all base and some style checks are only performed if a specific operating system name
occurs in the arguments of the -W command line option, of the Os macro, of the -Ios command line option,
or, if neither are present, in the return value of the uname(3) function.
ConventionsforbasesystemmanualsMdocdatefound
(mdoc, NetBSD) The Dd macro uses CVS Mdocdate keyword substitution, which is not supported by the NetBSD
base system. Consider using the conventional “Month dd, yyyy” format instead.
Mdocdatemissing
(mdoc, OpenBSD) The Dd macro does not use CVS Mdocdate keyword substitution, but using it is
conventionally expected in the OpenBSD base system.
unknownarchitecture
(mdoc, OpenBSD, NetBSD) The third argument of the Dt macro does not match any of the architectures this
operating system is running on.
operatingsystemexplicitlyspecified
(mdoc, OpenBSD, NetBSD) The Os macro has an argument. In the base system, it is conventionally left
blank.
RCSidmissing
(OpenBSD, NetBSD) The manual page lacks the comment line with the RCS identifier generated by CVS OpenBSD
or NetBSD keyword substitution as conventionally used in these operating systems.
Stylesuggestionslegacyman(7)dateformat
(mdoc) The Dd macro uses the legacy man(7) date format “yyyy-dd-mm”. Consider using the conventional
mdoc(7) date format “Month dd, yyyy” instead.
normalizingdateformatto: ...
(mdoc, man) The Dd or TH macro provides an abbreviated month name or a day number with a leading zero.
In the formatted output, the month name is written out in full and the leading zero is omitted.
lowercasecharacterindocumenttitle
(mdoc, man) The title is still used as given in the Dt or TH macro.
duplicateRCSid
A single manual page contains two copies of the RCS identifier for the same operating system. Consider
deleting the later instance and moving the first one up to the top of the page.
possibletypoinsectionname
(mdoc) Fuzzy string matching revealed that the argument of an Sh macro is similar, but not identical to a
standard section name.
unterminatedquotedargument
(roff) Macro arguments can be enclosed in double quote characters such that space characters and macro
names contained in the quoted argument need not be escaped. The closing quote of the last argument of a
macro can be omitted. However, omitting it is not recommended because it makes the code harder to read.
uselessmacro
(mdoc) A Bt, Tn, or Ud macro was found. Simply delete it: it serves no useful purpose.
considerusingOSmacro
(mdoc) A string was found in plain text or in a Bx macro that could be represented using Ox, Nx, Fx, or
Dx.
errnosoutoforder
(mdoc, NetBSD) The Er items in a Bl list are not in alphabetical order.
duplicateerrno
(mdoc, NetBSD) A Bl list contains two consecutive It entries describing the same Er number.
referencedmanualnotfound
(mdoc) An Xr macro references a manual page that was not found. When running with -Wbase, the search is
restricted to the base system, by default to /usr/share/man:/usr/X11R6/man. This path can be configured
at compile time using the MANPATH_BASE preprocessor macro. When running with -Wstyle, the search is
done along the full search path as described in the man(1) manual page, respecting the -m and -M command
line options, the MANPATH environment variable, the man.conf(5) file and falling back to the default of
/usr/share/man:/usr/X11R6/man:/usr/local/man, also configurable at compile time using the MANPATH_DEFAULT
preprocessor macro.
trailingdelimiter
(mdoc) The last argument of an Ex, Fo, Nd, Nm, Os, Sh, Ss, St, or Sx macro ends with a trailing
delimiter. This is usually bad style and often indicates typos. Most likely, the delimiter can be
removed.
noblankbeforetrailingdelimiter
(mdoc) The last argument of a macro that supports trailing delimiter arguments is longer than one byte
and ends with a trailing delimiter. Consider inserting a blank such that the delimiter becomes a
separate argument, thus moving it out of the scope of the macro.
fillmodealreadyenabled,skipping
(man) A fi request occurs even though the document is still in fill mode, or already switched back to
fill mode. It has no effect.
fillmodealreadydisabled,skipping
(man) An nf request occurs even though the document already switched to no-fill mode and did not switch
back to fill mode yet. It has no effect.
inputtextlinelongerthan80bytes
Consider breaking the input text line at one of the blank characters before column 80.
verbatim"--",maybeconsiderusing\(em
(mdoc) Even though the ASCII output device renders an em-dash as "--", that is not a good way to write it
in an input file because it renders poorly on all other output devices.
functionnamewithoutmarkup
(mdoc) A word followed by an empty pair of parentheses occurs on a text line. Consider using an Fn or Xr
macro.
whitespaceatendofinputline
(mdoc, man, roff) Whitespace at the end of input lines is almost never semantically significant — but in
the odd case where it might be, it is extremely confusing when reviewing and maintaining documents.
badcommentstyle
(roff) Comment lines start with a dot, a backslash, and a double-quote character. The mandoc utility
treats the line as a comment line even without the backslash, but leaving out the backslash might not be
portable.
Warningsrelatedtothedocumentprologuemissingmanualtitle,usingUNTITLED
(mdoc) A Dt macro has no arguments, or there is no Dt macro before the first non-prologue macro.
missingmanualtitle,using""
(man) There is no TH macro, or it has no arguments.
missingmanualsection,using""
(mdoc, man) A Dt or TH macro lacks the mandatory section argument.
unknownmanualsection
(mdoc) The section number in a Dt line is invalid, but still used.
filename/sectionmismatch
(mdoc, man) The name of the input file being processed is known and its file name extension starts with a
non-zero digit, but the Dt or TH macro contains a section argument that starts with a different non-zero
digit. The section argument is used as provided anyway. Consider checking whether the file name or the
argument need a correction.
missingdate,using""
(mdoc, man) The document was parsed as mdoc(7) and it has no Dd macro, or the Dd macro has no arguments
or only empty arguments; or the document was parsed as man(7) and it has no TH macro, or the TH macro has
less than three arguments or its third argument is empty.
cannotparsedate,usingitverbatim
(mdoc, man) The date given in a Dd or TH macro does not follow the conventional format.
dateinthefuture,usingitanyway
(mdoc, man) The date given in a Dd or TH macro is more than a day ahead of the current system time(3).
missingOsmacro,using""
(mdoc) The default or current system is not shown in this case.
lateprologuemacro
(mdoc) A Dd or Os macro occurs after some non-prologue macro, but still takes effect.
prologuemacrosoutoforder
(mdoc) The prologue macros are not given in the conventional order Dd, Dt, Os. All three macros are used
even when given in another order.
Warningsregardingdocumentstructure.soisfragile,betteruseln(1)
(roff) Including files only works when the parser program runs with the correct current working
directory.
nodocumentbody
(mdoc, man) The document body contains neither text nor macros. An empty document is shown, consisting
only of a header and a footer line.
contentbeforefirstsectionheader
(mdoc, man) Some macros or text precede the first Sh or SH section header. The offending macros and text
are parsed and added to the top level of the syntax tree, outside any section block.
firstsectionisnotNAME
(mdoc) The argument of the first Sh macro is not ‘NAME’. This may confuse makewhatis(8) and apropos(1).
NAMEsectionwithoutNmbeforeNd
(mdoc) The NAME section does not contain any Nm child macro before the first Nd macro.
NAMEsectionwithoutdescription
(mdoc) The NAME section lacks the mandatory Nd child macro.
descriptionnotattheendofNAME
(mdoc) The NAME section does contain an Nd child macro, but other content follows it.
badNAMEsectioncontent
(mdoc) The NAME section contains plain text or macros other than Nm and Nd.
missingcommabeforename
(mdoc) The NAME section contains an Nm macro that is neither the first one nor preceded by a comma.
missingdescriptionline,using""
(mdoc) The Nd macro lacks the required argument. The title line of the manual will end after the dash.
descriptionlineoutsideNAMEsection
(mdoc) An Nd macro appears outside the NAME section. The arguments are printed anyway and the following
text is used for apropos(1), but none of that behaviour is portable.
sectionsoutofconventionalorder
(mdoc) A standard section occurs after another section it usually precedes. All section titles are used
as given, and the order of sections is not changed.
duplicatesectiontitle
(mdoc) The same standard section title occurs more than once.
unexpectedsection
(mdoc) A standard section header occurs in a section of the manual where it normally isn't useful.
crossreferencetoself
(mdoc) An Xr macro refers to a name and section matching the section of the present manual page and a
name mentioned in an Nm macro in the NAME or SYNOPSIS section, or in an Fn or Fo macro in the SYNOPSIS.
Consider using Nm or Fn instead of Xr.
unusualXrorder
(mdoc) In the SEE ALSO section, an Xr macro with a lower section number follows one with a higher number,
or two Xr macros referring to the same section are out of alphabetical order.
unusualXrpunctuation
(mdoc) In the SEE ALSO section, punctuation between two Xr macros differs from a single comma, or there
is trailing punctuation after the last Xr macro.
AUTHORSsectionwithoutAnmacro
(mdoc) An AUTHORS sections contains no An macros, or only empty ones. Probably, there are author names
lacking markup.
Warningsrelatedtomacrosandnestingobsoletemacro
(mdoc) See the mdoc(7) manual for replacements.
macroneithercallablenorescaped
(mdoc) The name of a macro that is not callable appears on a macro line. It is printed verbatim. If the
intention is to call it, move it to its own input line; otherwise, escape it by prepending ‘\&’.
skippingparagraphmacro
In mdoc(7) documents, this happens
- at the beginning and end of sections and subsections
- right before non-compact lists and displays
- at the end of items in non-column, non-compact lists
- and for multiple consecutive paragraph macros.
In man(7) documents, it happens
- for empty P, PP, and LP macros
- for IP macros having neither head nor body arguments
- for br or sp right after SH or SSmovingparagraphmacrooutoflist
(mdoc) A list item in a Bl list contains a trailing paragraph macro. The paragraph macro is moved after
the end of the list.
skippingno-spacemacro
(mdoc) An input line begins with an Ns macro, or the next argument after an Ns macro is an isolated
closing delimiter. The macro is ignored.
blocksbadlynested
(mdoc) If two blocks intersect, one should completely contain the other. Otherwise, rendered output is
likely to look strange in any output format, and rendering in SGML-based output formats is likely to be
outright wrong because such languages do not support badly nested blocks at all. Typical examples of
badly nested blocks are "AoBoAcBc" and "AoBqAc". In these examples, Ac breaks Bo and Bq,
respectively.
nesteddisplaysarenotportable
(mdoc) A Bd, D1, or Dl display occurs nested inside another Bd display. This works with mandoc, but
fails with most other implementations.
movingcontentoutoflist
(mdoc) A Bl list block contains text or macros before the first It macro. The offending children are
moved before the beginning of the list.
firstmacroonline
Inside a Bl-column list, a Ta macro occurs as the first macro on a line, which is not portable.
linescopebroken
(man) While parsing the next-line scope of the previous macro, another macro is found that prematurely
terminates the previous one. The previous, interrupted macro is deleted from the parse tree.
Warningsrelatedtomissingargumentsskippingemptyrequest
(roff, eqn) The macro name is missing from a macro definition request, or an eqn(7) control statement or
operation keyword lacks its required argument.
conditionalrequestcontrolsemptyscope
(roff) A conditional request is only useful if any of the following follows it on the same logical input
line:
- The ‘\{’ keyword to open a multi-line scope.
- A request or macro or some text, resulting in a single-line scope.
- The immediate end of the logical line without any intervening whitespace, resulting in next-line
scope.
Here, a conditional request is followed by trailing whitespace only, and there is no other content on its
logical input line. Note that it doesn't matter whether the logical input line is split across multiple
physical input lines using ‘\’ line continuation characters. This is one of the rare cases where
trailing whitespace is syntactically significant. The conditional request controls a scope containing
whitespace only, so it is unlikely to have a significant effect, except that it may control a following
el clause.
skippingemptymacro
(mdoc) The indicated macro has no arguments and hence no effect.
emptyblock
(mdoc, man) A Bd, Bk, Bl, D1, Dl, MT, RS, or UR block contains nothing in its body and will produce no
output.
emptyargument,using0n
(mdoc) The required width is missing after Bd or Bl-offset or -width.
missingdisplaytype,using-ragged
(mdoc) The Bd macro is invoked without the required display type.
listtypeisnotthefirstargument
(mdoc) In a Bl macro, at least one other argument precedes the type argument. The mandoc utility copes
with any argument order, but some other mdoc(7) implementations do not.
missing-widthin-taglist,using8n
(mdoc) Every Bl macro having the -tag argument requires -width, too.
missingutilityname,using""
(mdoc) The Ex-std macro is called without an argument before Nm has first been called with an argument.
missingfunctionname,using""
(mdoc) The Fo macro is called without an argument. No function name is printed.
emptyheadinlistitem
(mdoc) In a Bl-diag, -hang, -inset, -ohang, or -tag list, an It macro lacks the required argument. The
item head is left empty.
emptylistitem
(mdoc) In a Bl-bullet, -dash, -enum, or -hyphen list, an It block is empty. An empty list item is
shown.
missingargument,usingnextline
(mdoc) An It macro in a Bd-column list has no arguments. While mandoc uses the text or macros of the
following line, if any, for the cell, other formatters may misformat the list.
missingfonttype,using\fR
(mdoc) A Bf macro has no argument. It switches to the default font.
unknownfonttype,using\fR
(mdoc) The Bf argument is invalid. The default font is used instead.
nothingfollowsprefix
(mdoc) A Pf macro has no argument, or only one argument and no macro follows on the same input line.
This defeats its purpose; in particular, spacing is not suppressed before the text or macros following on
the next input line.
emptyreferenceblock
(mdoc) An Rs macro is immediately followed by an Re macro on the next input line. Such an empty block
does not produce any output.
missingsectionargument
(mdoc) An Xr macro lacks its second, section number argument. The first argument, i.e. the name, is
printed, but without subsequent parentheses.
missing-stdargument,addingit
(mdoc) An Ex or Rv macro lacks the required -std argument. The mandoc utility assumes -std even when it
is not specified, but other implementations may not.
missingoptionstring,using""
(man) The OP macro is invoked without any argument. An empty pair of square brackets is shown.
missingresourceidentifier,using""
(man) The MT or UR macro is invoked without any argument. An empty pair of angle brackets is shown.
missingeqnbox,using""
(eqn) A diacritic mark or a binary operator is found, but there is nothing to the left of it. An empty
box is inserted.
Warningsrelatedtobadmacroargumentsduplicateargument
(mdoc) A Bd or Bl macro has more than one -compact, more than one -offset, or more than one -width
argument. All but the last instances of these arguments are ignored.
skippingduplicateargument
(mdoc) An An macro has more than one -split or -nosplit argument. All but the first of these arguments
are ignored.
skippingduplicatedisplaytype
(mdoc) A Bd macro has more than one type argument; the first one is used.
skippingduplicatelisttype
(mdoc) A Bl macro has more than one type argument; the first one is used.
skipping-widthargument
(mdoc) A Bl-column, -diag, -ohang, -inset, or -item list has a -width argument. That has no effect.
wrongnumberofcells
In a line of a Bl-column list, the number of tabs or Ta macros is less than the number expected from the
list header line or exceeds the expected number by more than one. Missing cells remain empty, and all
cells exceeding the number of columns are joined into one single cell.
unknownAT&TUNIXversion
(mdoc) An At macro has an invalid argument. It is used verbatim, with "AT&T UNIX " prefixed to it.
commainfunctionargument
(mdoc) An argument of an Fa or Fn macro contains a comma; it should probably be split into two arguments.
parenthesisinfunctionname
(mdoc) The first argument of an Fc or Fn macro contains an opening or closing parenthesis; that's
probably wrong, parentheses are added automatically.
unknownlibraryname
(mdoc, not on OpenBSD) An Lb macro has an unknown name argument and will be rendered as "library “name”".
invalidcontentinRsblock
(mdoc) An Rs block contains plain text or non-% macros. The bogus content is left in the syntax tree.
Formatting may be poor.
invalidBooleanargument
(mdoc) An Sm macro has an argument other than on or off. The invalid argument is moved out of the macro,
which leaves the macro empty, causing it to toggle the spacing mode.
argumentcontainstwofontescapes
(roff) The second argument of a char request contains more than one font escape sequence. A wrong font
may remain active after using the character.
unknownfont,skippingrequest
(man, tbl) A roff(7) ft request or a tbl(7) f layout modifier has an unknown font argument.
oddnumberofcharactersinrequest
(roff) A tr request contains an odd number of characters. The last character is mapped to the blank
character.
Warningsrelatedtoplaintextblanklineinfillmode,using.sp
(mdoc) The meaning of blank input lines is only well-defined in non-fill mode: In fill mode, line breaks
of text input lines are not supposed to be significant. However, for compatibility with groff, blank
lines in fill mode are formatted like sp requests. To request a paragraph break, use Pp instead of a
blank line.
tabinfilledtext
(mdoc, man) The meaning of tab characters is only well-defined in non-fill mode: In fill mode, whitespace
is not supposed to be significant on text input lines. As an implementation dependent choice, tab
characters on text lines are passed through to the formatters in any case. Given that the text before
the tab character will be filled, it is hard to predict which tab stop position the tab will advance to.
newsentence,newline
(mdoc) A new sentence starts in the middle of a text line. Start it on a new input line to help
formatters produce correct spacing.
invalidescapesequence
(roff) An escape sequence has an invalid opening argument delimiter, lacks the closing argument
delimiter, the argument is of an invalid form, or it is a character escape sequence with an invalid name.
If the argument is incomplete, \* and \n expand to an empty string, \B to the digit ‘0’, and \w to the
length of the incomplete argument. All other invalid escape sequences are ignored.
undefinedescape,printingliterally
(roff) In an escape sequence, the first character right after the leading backslash is invalid. That
character is printed literally, which is equivalent to ignoring the backslash.
undefinedstring,using""
(roff) If a string is used without being defined before, its value is implicitly set to the empty string.
However, defining strings explicitly before use keeps the code more readable.
Warningsrelatedtotablestbllinestartswithspan
(tbl) The first cell in a table layout line is a horizontal span (‘s’). Data provided for this cell is
ignored, and nothing is printed in the cell.
tblcolumnstartswithspan
(tbl) The first line of a table layout specification requests a vertical span (‘^’). Data provided for
this cell is ignored, and nothing is printed in the cell.
skippingverticalbarintbllayout
(tbl) A table layout specification contains more than two consecutive vertical bars. A double bar is
printed, all additional bars are discarded.
Errorsrelatedtotablesnon-alphabeticcharacterintbloptions
(tbl) The table options line contains a character other than a letter, blank, or comma where the
beginning of an option name is expected. The character is ignored.
skippingunknowntbloption
(tbl) The table options line contains a string of letters that does not match any known option name. The
word is ignored.
missingtbloptionargument
(tbl) A table option that requires an argument is not followed by an opening parenthesis, or the opening
parenthesis is immediately followed by a closing parenthesis. The option is ignored.
wrongtbloptionargumentsize
(tbl) A table option argument contains an invalid number of characters. Both the option and the argument
are ignored.
emptytbllayout
(tbl) A table layout specification is completely empty, specifying zero lines and zero columns. As a
fallback, a single left-justified column is used.
invalidcharacterintbllayout
(tbl) A table layout specification contains a character that can neither be interpreted as a layout key
character nor as a layout modifier, or a modifier precedes the first key. The invalid character is
discarded.
unmatchedparenthesisintbllayout
(tbl) A table layout specification contains an opening parenthesis, but no matching closing parenthesis.
The rest of the input line, starting from the parenthesis, has no effect.
ignoringexcessivespacingintbllayout
(tbl) A spacing modifier in a table layout is unreasonably large. The default spacing of 3n is used
instead.
tblwithoutanydatacells
(tbl) A table does not contain any data cells. It will probably produce no output.
ignoringdatainspannedtblcell
(tbl) A table cell is marked as a horizontal span (‘s’) or vertical span (‘^’) in the table layout, but
it contains data. The data is ignored.
ignoringextratbldatacells
(tbl) A data line contains more cells than the corresponding layout line. The data in the extra cells is
ignored.
datablockopenatendoftbl
(tbl) A data block is opened with T{, but never closed with a matching T}. The remaining data lines of
the table are all put into one cell, and any remaining cells stay empty.
Errorsrelatedtoroff,mdoc,andmancodeduplicateprologuemacro
(mdoc) One of the prologue macros occurs more than once. The last instance overrides all previous ones.
skippinglatetitlemacro
(mdoc) The Dt macro appears after the first non-prologue macro. Traditional formatters cannot handle
this because they write the page header before parsing the document body. Even though this technical
restriction does not apply to mandoc, traditional semantics is preserved. The late macro is discarded
including its arguments.
inputstacklimitexceeded,infiniteloop?
(roff) Explicit recursion limits are implemented for the following features, in order to prevent infinite
loops:
- expansion of nested escape sequences including expansion of strings and number registers,
- expansion of nested user-defined macros,
- and so file inclusion.
When a limit is hit, the output is incorrect, typically losing some content, but the parser can continue.
skippingbadcharacter
(mdoc, man, roff) The input file contains a byte that is not a printable ascii(7) character. The message
mentions the character number. The offending byte is replaced with a question mark (‘?’). Consider
editing the input file to replace the byte with an ASCII transliteration of the intended character.
skippingunknownmacro
(mdoc, man, roff) The first identifier on a request or macro line is neither recognized as a roff(7)
request, nor as a user-defined macro, nor, respectively, as an mdoc(7) or man(7) macro. It may be
mistyped or unsupported. The request or macro is discarded including its arguments.
skippingrequestoutsidemacro
(roff) A shift or return request occurs outside any macro definition and has no effect.
skippinginsecurerequest
(roff) An input file attempted to run a shell command or to read or write an external file. Such
attempts are denied for security reasons.
skippingitemoutsidelist
(mdoc, eqn) An It macro occurs outside any Bl list, or an eqn(7) above delimiter occurs outside any pile.
It is discarded including its arguments.
skippingcolumnoutsidecolumnlist
(mdoc) A Ta macro occurs outside any Bl-column block. It is discarded including its arguments.
skippingendofblockthatisnotopen
(mdoc, man, eqn, tbl, roff) Various syntax elements can only be used to explicitly close blocks that have
previously been opened. An mdoc(7) block closing macro, a man(7) ME, RE or UE macro, an eqn(7) right
delimiter or closing brace, or the end of an equation, table, or roff(7) conditional request is
encountered but no matching block is open. The offending request or macro is discarded.
fewerRSblocksopen,skipping
(man) The RE macro is invoked with an argument, but less than the specified number of RS blocks is open.
The RE macro is discarded.
insertingmissingendofblock
(mdoc, tbl) Various mdoc(7) macros as well as tables require explicit closing by dedicated macros. A
block that doesn't support bad nesting ends before all of its children are properly closed. The open
child nodes are closed implicitly.
appendingmissingendofblock
(mdoc, man, eqn, tbl, roff) At the end of the document, an explicit mdoc(7) block, a man(7) next-line
scope or MT, RS or UR block, an equation, table, or roff(7) conditional or ignore block is still open.
The open block is closed implicitly.
escapedcharacternotallowedinaname
(roff) Macro, string and register identifiers consist of printable, non-whitespace ASCII characters.
Escape sequences and characters and strings expressed in terms of them cannot form part of a name. The
first argument of an am, as, de, ds, nr, or rr request, or any argument of an rm request, or the name of
a request or user defined macro being called, is terminated by an escape sequence. In the cases of as,
ds, and nr, the request has no effect at all. In the cases of am, de, rr, and rm, what was parsed up to
this point is used as the arguments to the request, and the rest of the input line is discarded including
the escape sequence. When parsing for a request or a user-defined macro name to be called, only the
escape sequence is discarded. The characters preceding it are used as the request or macro name, the
characters following it are used as the arguments to the request or macro.
usingmacroargumentoutsidemacro
(roff) The escape sequence \$ occurs outside any macro definition and expands to the empty string.
argumentnumberisnotnumeric
(roff) The argument of the escape sequence \$ is not a digit; the escape sequence expands to the empty
string.
NOTIMPLEMENTED:Bd-file
(mdoc) For security reasons, the Bd macro does not support the -file argument. By requesting the
inclusion of a sensitive file, a malicious document might otherwise trick a privileged user into
inadvertently displaying the file on the screen, revealing the file content to bystanders. The argument
is ignored including the file name following it.
skippingdisplaywithoutarguments
(mdoc) A Bd block macro does not have any arguments. The block is discarded, and the block content is
displayed in whatever mode was active before the block.
missinglisttype,using-item
(mdoc) A Bl macro fails to specify the list type.
argumentisnotnumeric,using1
(roff) The argument of a ce request is not a number.
argumentisnotacharacter
(roff) The first argument of a char request is neither a single ASCII character nor a single character
escape sequence. The request is ignored including all its arguments.
missingmanualname,using""
(mdoc) The first call to Nm, or any call in the NAME section, lacks the required argument.
uname(3)systemcallfailed,usingUNKNOWN
(mdoc) The Os macro is called without arguments, and the uname(3) system call failed. As a workaround,
mandoc can be compiled with -DOSNAME="\"string\"".
unknownstandardspecifier
(mdoc) An St macro has an unknown argument and is discarded.
skippingrequestwithoutnumericargument
(roff, eqn) An it request or an eqn(7) size or gsize statement has a non-numeric or negative argument or
no argument at all. The invalid request or statement is ignored.
excessiveshift
(roff) The argument of a shift request is larger than the number of arguments of the macro that is
currently being executed. All macro arguments are deleted and \n(.$ is set to zero.
NOTIMPLEMENTED:.sowithabsolutepathor".."
(roff) For security reasons, mandoc allows so file inclusion requests only with relative paths and only
without ascending to any parent directory. By requesting the inclusion of a sensitive file, a malicious
document might otherwise trick a privileged user into inadvertently displaying the file on the screen,
revealing the file content to bystanders. mandoc only shows the path as it appears behind so.
.sorequestfailed
(roff) Servicing a so request requires reading an external file, but the file could not be opened.
mandoc only shows the path as it appears behind so.
skippingallarguments
(mdoc, man, eqn, roff) An mdoc(7) Bt, Ed, Ef, Ek, El, Lp, Pp, Re, Rs, or Ud macro, an It macro in a list
that don't support item heads, a man(7) LP, P, or PP macro, an eqn(7) EQ or EN macro, or a roff(7) br,
fi, or nf request or ‘..’ block closing request is invoked with at least one argument. All arguments are
ignored.
skippingexcessarguments
(mdoc, man, roff) A macro or request is invoked with too many arguments:
-Fo, MT, PD, RS, UR, ft, or sp with more than one argument
-An with another argument after -split or -nosplit-RE with more than one argument or with a non-integer argument
-OP or a request of the de family with more than two arguments
-Dt with more than three arguments
-TH with more than five arguments
-Bd, Bk, or Bl with invalid arguments
The excess arguments are ignored.
Unsupportedfeaturesinputtoolarge
(mdoc, man) Currently, mandoc cannot handle input files larger than its arbitrary size limit of 2^31
bytes (2 Gigabytes). Since useful manuals are always small, this is not a problem in practice. Parsing
is aborted as soon as the condition is detected.
unsupportedcontrolcharacter
(roff) An ASCII control character supported by other roff(7) implementations but not by mandoc was found
in an input file. It is replaced by a question mark.
unsupportedescapesequence
(roff) An input file contains an escape sequence supported by GNU troff or Heirloom troff but not by
mandoc, and it is likely that this will cause information loss or considerable misformatting.
unsupportedroffrequest
(roff) An input file contains a roff(7) request supported by GNU troff or Heirloom troff but not by
mandoc, and it is likely that this will cause information loss or considerable misformatting.
eqndelimoptionintbl
(eqn, tbl) The options line of a table defines equation delimiters. Any equation source code contained
in the table will be printed unformatted.
unsupportedtablelayoutmodifier
(tbl) A table layout specification contains an ‘m’ modifier. The modifier is discarded.
ignoringmacrointable
(tbl, mdoc, man) A table contains an invocation of an mdoc(7) or man(7) macro or of an undefined macro.
The macro is ignored, and its arguments are handled as if they were a text line.
skippingtblin-Tmanmode
(mdoc, tbl) An input file contains the TS macro. This message is only generated in -Tman output mode,
where tbl(7) input is not supported.
skippingeqnin-Tmanmode
(mdoc, eqn) An input file contains the EQ macro. This message is only generated in -Tman output mode,
where eqn(7) input is not supported.
Badcommandlineargumentsbadcommandlineargument
The argument following one of the -IKMmOTW command line options is invalid, or a file given as a command
line argument cannot be opened.
duplicatecommandlineargument
The -I command line option was specified twice.
optionhasasuperfluousvalue
An argument to the -O option has a value but does not accept one.
missingoptionvalue
An argument to the -O option has no argument but requires one.
badoptionvalue
An argument to the -Oindent or width option has an invalid value.
duplicateoptionvalue
The same -O option is specified more than once.
nosuchtag
The -Otag option was specified but the tag was not found in any of the displayed manual pages.
-Tmarkdownunsupportedforman(7)input
(man) The -Tmarkdown option was specified but an input file uses the man(7) language. No output is
produced for that input file.
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