Re: [Groff] empty line before .TH in man page produces sometimes an empty page

[Werner LEMBERG]

> Consider the followin short man page:
>
> $ cat manpage.1
> \" comment
> .TH MANPAGE 1 "2006 Oct 1" "manpage"
> .SH NAME
> manpage \- test man page
>
> This has a bug: the first line (with the comment) should start with
> a dot.  For example, the man page bash.1 has this bug.
>
> Without the dot, this line produces an empty space in the output.
> In text or html output, this space is a single empty line, ok.
>
> But in ps or dvi output, a whole empty page is created.  I consider
> this a bug in ps and dvi mode.

Two observations.

  . Reason for the difference between troff and nroff mode is the
    command line register \n[cR]: If set, a single, very long page is
    produced instead of multiple pages.  This is the default for nroff
    mode.

  . The man macros are able to handle more than a single man page.
    For example, you can say

      groff -man foo.1 bar.1

    In troff mode, each man page starts with a new page.

    The code which checks whether it is necessary to start a new page
    is as follows (slightly simplified):

      .if (\\n[nl] > 0) \
      .  bp

    Right after a `.bp' request, the `nl' register is set to -1.  With
    other words, the above code snippet prevents that we accidentally
    get two consecutive `.bp' requests.

I think this explains the behaviour you've encountered.

> If you write some text before the .TH request this text is written
> in a single line even in ps or dvi output.

Actually, I think this is a buglet, because it 1) should cause a page
break and 2) it spoils the first header line.

> But as soon as you add a line that is empty or has only spaces or a
> comment a whole empty page is created in ps or dvi mode.

This is rather a feature.

I don't know whether it is worth the effort to implement fixes for
both cases.  In case someone wants to work on it: Patches welcome!


    Werner