Re: [Groff] surprise, surprise

[Andrew Koenig]

Ted> I'm aware of this paragraph! However, the above reported behaviour
Ted> (rather non-behaviour") slightly puzzles me (I don't have a "UNIX
Ted> troff" to hand at the moment).

Ted> _Either_ one takes the above paragraph literally, in which case
Ted> the line "\fB.test\fP" does _not_ begin with a "." and so is _not_
Ted> a control line; or else "\fB..." is transparent at the start of a line
Ted> and so the line should be interpreted as ".test" (in a Bold context)
Ted> (as is the case with groff).

The line "\fB.test\fP" does not begin with a "." and so is
not a control line.  That is the way Unix troff treats it.

Ted> One possibility is that because ".test" is a four-character name,
Ted> the definition ".de test ..." and/or the invocation ".test" are
Ted> not being recognised as macros. Could someone with "UNIX troff"
Ted> re-try with a two-character name, e.g.

Ted>   .de jK
Ted>   Hallo!
Ted>   ..
Ted>   \fB.jK\fP

Wow!  It really does interpret .jK as a macro invocation!
That's truly bizarre...

The output is "Hallo!" in bold font.

Under groff, the output appears in roman font.

-- 
Andrew Koenig, address@hidden, http://www.research.att.com/info/ark