Re: [Groff] Resolving Forward References

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Andy,

> I hadn't even considered manually running both passes and using a
> temporary file.  Should I just dispose of the formatter output on the
> first pass?  In other words, I would use the command pair:
> 
>         groff -rFirstPass=1 -e -p -t -ms -Tps doc.ms >/dev/null
>         groff -rFirstPass=0 -e -p -t -ms -Tps doc.ms >doc.ps

Yes.  Although you may want to use groff/troff's -z option for the first
pass which makes troff not produce any output and avoids running a
device post-processor.

Also, if you're using make(1) then

    rm -f doc.ps doc.ps.new
    groff ... >doc.ps.new
    mv doc.ps.new doc.ps

avoids doc.ps getting created if groff has errors.

Cheers,


Ralph.