Re: [Groff] Progress report on the portability audit -- and what to do about URLs?

[Gunnar Ritter]

"Eric S. Raymond" <address@hidden> wrote:

> Gunnar Ritter <address@hidden>:
> > "Eric S. Raymond" <address@hidden> wrote:
> > 
> > > Gunnar Ritter <address@hidden>:
> > > > > I believe you are incorrect.  If these definitions are *in the file*,
> > > > > won't the Solarix/AIX/HP-UX toolchain evaluate them the same way
> > > > > they would evaluate any other local macro?
> > > > 
> > > > No, I was quoting ".URL and .MTO" which you cut away, and
> > > > for rather obvious reason they will not.
> > >
> > > Um...are we misunderstanding each other?  
> > >
> > > I have not removed any instances of .URL or .MTO.
> > 
> > .URL and .MTO are not two-character names.
>
> I'm still missing something.  Are you saying that I should have
> changed all of the existing instances of URL and MTO into two-letter
> macros?

Yes.

> My survey of the viewers out there indicates that long names are portable.

Then you left out Solarix/AIX/HP-UX nroff while doing your
survey.

> I took for granted that this applies to Heirloom troff aas well, since
> you advertise supporting so many groff features.

Yes, Heirloom troff will do that if invoked with -x3 or -mg
as recommended in the README for a manual page viewer setup.
(There are actually some manual pages that make heavy use of
long names, e.g. mplayer(1). I suppose that their authors do
not care about Solarix/AIX/HP-UX, but that is their decision.)

But this remark was not about Heirloom troff.

> If you tell me otherwise, then of course the portability constraints just got 
> narrower, and the changes I will have to make to the groff manual pages 
> will be more intrusive.  I was hoping to avoid that.
>
> But please explain the actual problem so I can address it.

I hope it is clear enough now.

        Gunnar