RE: [Groff] Body Contents leak into headers, please Help!

[Ted Harding]

On 14-Sep-99 Ken Causey wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm using groff (v1.11.1) to output reports for a system I've put
> together and I'm having trouble with the header on some pages
> containing text that shouldn't be in the header.
> 
> http://www.ineffable.com/groff/claim.tr
> 
> is the groff "source" as generated by my script, and
> 
> http://www.ineffable.com/groff/claim.ps
> 
> is the postscript output I get.
> 
> Look at the tops of pages 2, 4, and 5 to see what I'm talking
> about.  Notice that an entry that didn't quite fit on the previous
> page is showing up as the beginning of the header on the
> new page rather than starting the body.

This may be a tricky one. The fundamental reason is a combination of the
facts that

a) you are doing "raw" troff with no structuring (as you would get
   from macros)
b) page position traps are sprung _after_ output of a line which
   meets or passes their position.

>From the 1992 troff manual (7.5):

"The macro associated with a page trap is automatically invoked when
 a line of text is output whose vetical size reaches or sweeps past
 the trap position. Reaching the bottom of a page springs the top of
 page trap, if any, provided there is a next page."

The part of the "body" that appears to leak into the header is in
fact the contents of a single input line, which it is your intention
should be formatted with the following input lines to make up a single
output line which should be the first line following the hader of the next
page.

I'm not sure, at first sight, whether what you have observed, compared
with the behaviour specified in the manual, is a bug or not, or whether
it is consistent with the manual and simply needs to be looked after in
some other way.

I have encountered a similar irritating behaviour when trying to create
a macro that would achieve continuous true underlining of filled text
(like what "real wordprocessors" can do ... ). I sort of solved it but
not completely.

I'm trying variants on your header and footer macros to see if the problem
can be overcome. It is also possible to set up a more elaborate "pagetop"
macro for use with the "ms" macro package, which will do the job, but
it is cumbersome.

Stand by.
Ted.

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E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <address@hidden>
Date: 14-Sep-99                                       Time: 23:05:28
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