Re: [Groff] Reinventing the refer(1) wheel

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Sun Apr 13 17:08:03 2003, address@hidden wrote:
> 
> Hi Jörgen,
> 
> > So I've been playing with the idea of writing a refer(1) "replacement"
> > which is compatible with the existing .[/.] notation and with existing
...
> Also, we may have more evidence of your stupidity if you could give us
> an example of the one or two formats you require that refer can't
> provide  ;-)

I haven't though it through all that well, but some things that come
to mind and seem unsolvable with modest macro modifications:

- "magic" words in the database cannot be translated (e.g. "(ed)". "et al.",
  "%D unknown").  It would be nice if a single database could be used
  for papers written in different languages/for different locales.
- Clever sorting of the references in a $LIST$ (I have no good example here)
- "Ibid." handling (if that is possible to do right without human
  intervention).
- hyphenation points in URLs/mail addresses/Message-IDs
  inside references, without inserting them manually into the database.

regards,
Jörgen

-- 
  // Jörgen Grahn       "And then the design was ignored, and small children
\X/ <address@hidden>  with crayons were given the O'Reilly Perl books and
                         told to Create.  And lo, it was done."
                                                         -- Teo de H, in ASR