RE: [Groff] \# Blank space control.

[Ted Harding]

On 03-Feb-00 Eddie Maddox wrote:
> \# Blank space control.
> 
> .nf
> .na
> 
> 123456
> \# --> 123456
> \# fine.
> 
> 123
> 456
> \# --> 123
> \#     456
> \# fine.
> 
> .fi
> 123
> 456
> \# --> 123 456
> \#        ^ not so fine.
> 
> \# ideas, anyone?

This is normal behaviour. "A word is any string of characters delimited
by the space character or the beginning/end of the input line." In other
words, typing a sequence of characters on two separate lines is
equivalent to typing them separated by a space (with a bit of extra
complication in the 2-line case of the last character on line 1 is
an end-of-sentence character).

There is no groff request to suppress this behaviour globally.

To suppress it in particular cases, you have two options.

One would be to type your input as

  123\
  456

where the newline following the \ is hidden by the \. The other
is to use the \c sequence similarly:

  123\c
  456

where the \c allows you to interpolate control lines (such
as built-in requests or macro calls) berwen the two lines.
"A word ... may be interrupted by terminating the word (and line)
with \c; the next encountered text [i.e. not control lines]
wil be treated as a continuation of the interrupted word."

Ted.

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E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <address@hidden>
Date: 03-Feb-00                                       Time: 17:29:16
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