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mandoc: install the libmandoc library #250236

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mandoc: install the libmandoc library #250236

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1 change: 1 addition & 0 deletions Formula/m/mandoc.rb
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Expand Up @@ -90,6 +90,7 @@ def install
ENV.deparallelize do
system "make"
system "make", "install"
system "make", "lib-install"
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We do not ship static-only libraries
https://docs.brew.sh/Acceptable-Formulae#shared-vs-static-libraries

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It is avoided, but if there is no option and is required by others, then I think we could.

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What would use it though? Even upstream discourages using that API, recommending simply invoking mandoc instead.

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@cvengler cvengler Oct 20, 2025 •
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I am currently working on a roff toolchain in Rust. As far as I am aware, libmandoc is the only library that exists for the purpose.

I get your point, but given the monopoly of the library, I disagree.

Besides, I am using it to get an AST. While the mandoc program offers -Ttree, parsing this is rather inconvenient compared to a C tree structure.

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I think if upstream actively tells people not to use the library, we shouldn't ship either.

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@cvengler cvengler Oct 21, 2025 •
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I disagree.
To me, what upstream is trying to imply is an eternal zerover and we do ship zerover things too.
Besides, development in mandoc is fairly slow these days, last release has been done 4 years ago.
Its not dead, the CVS repo has activity, but the release cycle is slow.

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For that reason, using that interface is not particularly recommended. If possible for the intended purpose, it is preferable and certainly much more robust to fork and execute a mandoc(1) child process.

I don't think this is "telling people not to use it".

I think this is a case where we should install the library, avoid using it ourselves and provide a caveat instead. Perhaps we install to libexec or something if we want to make it hard for us to use it ourselves.

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@cvengler cvengler Oct 21, 2025 •
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FWIW, Linuxland is fairly undecided here.
Alpine for example packages it, Void Linux does not, and Debian does the Debian way by offering libmandoc-dev.

I think the decision of people to not package stems more from not knowing it exists, rather than actively refusing to, but that is an assumption, given the fact that it is rarely used.

end
end

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