Re: [Groff] nop request

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Werner,

> Not in macros IMHO.  I prefer to have proper indentation.
> Additionally, `.nop' (or whatever name it will finally get) is a
> safeguard against spurious whitespace at the beginning of the line.
>
> > > Do you have a better name?
> >
> > I've thought hard about this and I don't think so.  Perhaps it is
> > hard to name because its purpose doesn't fit well?
>
> It's a philosophical question, I think.  Nobody is forced to use it,
> but I believe there are a lot of groff users who will like that.
>
> ...
>
> My idea is to introduce a `.comment' request to have an equivalent to
> the comment escape `\#' -- incidentally, this is exactly your idea of
> `.nop' :-) I think that `.nop' isn't a good name for that purpose,
> but `.comment' isn't either since it is too long.  What do you think
> about using `."'?

OK, here's another suggestion.  m4 has a dnl command used for comments.
It stands for `delete (upto and including) newline'.  How about calling
the .nop command after what it is doing rather than the way you are
using it.  .dws -- delete following whitespace.

    .if ...
    .  if ...
    .    dws Hallo!
    .    dws .dws a command can follow too.
    .    dnl this is a comment

Your .comment could similarly become .dnl a la m4.


Ralph.