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[Groff] Readable tbl-source
From: |
Slotte Sverre (NRC/Helsinki) |
Subject: |
[Groff] Readable tbl-source |
Date: |
Wed, 04 Sep 2002 13:37:54 +0300 |
User-agent: |
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0rc2) Gecko/20020510 |
Hi
When cleaning out some old e-mail files I came upon an old question of
mine: is it somehow possible to make the tbl-source "look OK" for
easier editing? When elimiting fields with TAB or : or whatever fields
of varying lengths make it difficult to see what is going on.
I originally sent this question to gnu.groff.bug in 1996, but I got no
reply. Here we go again in a new forum:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I am using gtbl to format a table. The fields of the table are of
varying length, and this makes it rather hard to read and edit:
tab(:); \" not mentioned in subsequent examples
...
foo:bar:2:xxx
this is a longer field:right!:89:xyzzy
a:b:3:d
I came up with the (imho) novel idea on using ".char" (outside
the .TS/.TE pair) to create a filler character in order to put
some external structure into my table:
.char _ \&
foo_____________________:bar______:_2:xxx
this is a longer field__:right____:89:xyzzy
a_______________________:b________:_3:d
.rchar _
This works beautifully; gtbl has no trouble formatting my table
correctly, and the source code is very readable.
In fact, I do not (normally) use standard characters, such as _,
but choose something out of the upper half of the latin1
character set. I am rather fond of the bullet character, since it
does not normally appear in text.
I have also used ".char _ \0" when I have needed a digit-wide
filler that does not occupy two spaces in the file.
My question is: is this a safe and acceptable way of using gtbl?
If not, why?
Would it even be possible to somehow map the space character
to \&, thus being able to write:
.char _ \N'32' \" This would output a real space
foo :bar : 2:xxx
this_is_a_longer_field :right :89:xyzzy
a :b : 3:d
Eagerly awaiting responses from groff-gurus out there
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Regarding the question "is this a safe and acceptable way of using
gtbl?" James Clark informed me that he "can't see any problem with it".
As for using spaces instead of e.g. _ I seem not to have received an
answer, or then I just cannot find it anywhere.
Since groff is now under development again I should very much like to
open this question again. Is there a batter way of achieving readable
tbl-source than mapping rare characters to \&? Whitespace would be
better, I think, but then we run into the problem with spaces and tabs
apperaring quite legally in the text-fields.
Can something be done to gtbl to allow for source-code formatting?
gpic does not have this problem, as it does not use whitespace in the
same way (== formatting is possible).
Any thoughts out there?
Sverre
--
Sverre Slotte | address@hidden | Mobile +358 50 4839532
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- [Groff] Readable tbl-source,
Slotte Sverre (NRC/Helsinki) <=