Re: [Groff] nop request

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi,

Sorry for the delayed reply, other things get in the way.

> > Why the special commands?  Are you worried about not knowing the
> > current escape character when you want to save it?  If so, isn't
> > just a convention that it is always backslash when source macro
> > packages, etc.  If you change it locally you should change it back
> > before using others code.
> 
> As mentioned in another mail, it is most convenient to define macros
> without having an escape character to avoid the doubling of
> backslashes.  Now consider tmac.trace.  This macro packages redefines
> the `.de' request to trace macros.  It must be called just before the
> macro package to be traced.
>
> ...
>
> The idea is to say
> 
>   groff -mtrace -mzzz ...
> 
> but this will fail!  I've tried hard to find a solution with the
> current groff to implement tmac.trace so that it works regardless of
> the used escape character (resp. if the escape character is suppressed
> with `.eo'), but it is impossible.  With my planned extensions, tmac
> trace will look like this, and it will be independent on the escape
> character:

OK, I've no objection to ecs and ecr being added.  Although, it seems
that they are necessary only because

    .eo and .ec are being used around definitions.  If your mind is
    used to the double and quadruple backslashes then it makes reading
    macros written in this manner most hard;  your brain keeps saying
    `there's a mistake!'.  Troff code looking like traditional troff
    code is an important consideration if others are to easily read and
    comprehend it.

    The convention that \ is the escape character, at least when
    invoking `external' macros, is being weakened.

This is probably why troff has been OK without them all this time :-)


Ralph.