manpages is mdoc(7)

[Jan Stary]

On Mar 31 23:07:06, ryandesign at macports.org wrote:
> > Anyway, the mdoc(7) rewrite is apparently not happening.
> 
> Right; the asciidoc rewrite of the manpages was just released to the public in MacPorts 2.4 so there's probably no interest in changing it again so soon.

But the age of the asciidoc rewrite has nothing to do with it, right?

I'm not hoping to change the course here,
but what were the manpages written in before this?
porthier.7 is in mdoc(7), with .Dd June 1, 2007
- were all the base manpages im mdoc(7) before?

Now that they are in asciidoc,

 * the actual man(7)page needs to be generated
 * the generating requires horrendous xsl transformations
 * both the asciidoc source and the generated man(7) need to be in the repo
 * the result is this:

'\" t
.TH "PORT\-CAT" "1" "2016\-11\-06" "MacPorts 2\&.4\&.99" "MacPorts Manual"
.\" -----------------------------------------------------------------
.\" * Define some portability stuff
.\" -----------------------------------------------------------------
.\" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.\" http://bugs.debian.org/507673
.\" http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2009-02/msg00013.html
.\" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.ie \n(.g .ds Aq \(aq
.el       .ds Aq '
[...]


That's right: let's start in each and every manpage
with a workaround to a 2009 bug in docbook-xsl.

I just can't believe how this can be viewed as better
than simply having mdoc(7) manpages which work by themselves,
have been around and supported for decades, and are a clear
and concise description of the semantic.

	Jan