Re: [Groff] Odd ms Macro Page Offset Register Behavior

[Werner LEMBERG]

> Following up on my question a couple of weeks ago regarding the
> misformatting of ms macro footers when an earlier .if request
> succeeds, I further isolated the problem.  It may be succinctly
> stated as follows: If a multiline .if request preceding the .NH and
> .PP requests of an ms document succeeds (i.e. its expression
> evaluates to a non-zero value), the even and odd footers of the
> document are not properly formatted.  By "multi-line .if request" I
> mean an .if of the form:
> 
>         .if <expression> \{
>         .  ...
>         .  ...
>         .\}

Ha!  This is not correct!  You've forgotten a final `\' in the first
line.  It must be this:

  .if <expression> \{\
  .  ...
  .  ...
  .\}

Without the `\', the first line is treated as a blank line.

Using the current CVS, I get identical results with and without the if
clause.  If I omit the final `\', I can see the failure you describe.

Maybe it is worth to add a .blm request at the beginning of the
document which is reset as soon as some real output is produced.
LaTeX works similarly.


    Werner