Re: [Groff] soelim outdated

[Werner LEMBERG]

> at least up to version 1.15, soelim does not understand .mso,
> \V[$var], etc. so it is practically unusable on a modern groff
> setup.  I can work on it and provide a patch if nobody else is
> working on it.  I can also add other ideas and requests if they're
> reasonable and I know how to implement them...

Three months ago this has been discussed already:

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   > >    > > It would be nice to have an "msoelim".  I tried to hack the
   > >    > > present "soelim" but I am no programmer and had no sucess.
   > >    > 
   > >    > But isn't this an abuse of the `mso' request?  Or do you really
   > >    > intend to pipe macro files stored together with other TMAC
   > >    > files through tbl and friends?
   > >    > 
   > >    > Can you give an example how you would use it?
   > > 
   > > I use it just as I use the "so" request, except without the absolute
   > > pathnames in the files.   The example that I had in mind was:  
   > > 
   > > [...]
   > > 
   > > In this way ".mso" acts like the "\input" command in TeX.
   > 
   > I don't believe that you really want an `msoelim' program.  I think
   > you want a GROFF_INPUT_PATH environment variable where .so requests
   > search for files also...
   > 

I thought that was the difference between "so" and "mso"--that "mso"
searched paths in the GROFF_TMAC_PATH while "so" didn't; but I must
have misunderstood the documentation.  Anyway you are right.  I want
an "so" that reads paths from some environment variable.  So "so"
behaves with respect to "GROFF_INPUT_PATH" as "\input" behaves with
respect to "TEXINPUTS".

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I think this is what you want -- patches are highly welcome :-)

Can you please explain why you think that \V needs to be expanded by
soelim?

And of course we are interested in further suggestions...


    Werner