Re: [Groff] Nesting macro calls in mdoc

[Werner LEMBERG]

> > I've got a man page here, written in mdoc, which seems to nest macros
> > correctly according to the documentation but generates an error. Can
> > anyone shed any light on it? The line in question is:
> > 
> >   .Ic Sq \&? .
> > 
> > ... which should print the three characters `?' in a literal font
> > followed by a dot. However, it produces this error message:
> > 
> >   Usage: .Ic interactive_command ... (#102)
> 
> This is a bug.  We'll try to fix this soon.

To be more specific, this is a bug (namely an omission) in the
documentation.  The error message is also not really correct; it
should be something like

  Using a macro as first argument cancels effect of `.Ic'.

since .Sq immediately resets the font.  So the macro call is wrong.
To get "`?'" in a litaral font, you have to say

  .Ic `?' .

Note that the final dot is also printed in the literal font.

BTW, using .Sq in .Ic doesn't make sense at all -- the quotes produced
by .Sq have some `metaness', while .Ic represents something which has
to be input literally.


    Werner