Re: [Groff] Status of the portability work, and plans for the future

[Eric S. Raymond]

Werner LEMBERG <address@hidden>:
> 
> > > You've forgotten to store something in register `a'.
> >
> > On reflection, I think that should probably be ".ad b".  It's
> > supposed to be restoring the normal adjustment mode for a man page.
> 
> I disagree.  Perhaps someone likes to make the appearance of man pages
> formatted with -man similar to the ones formatted with -mdoc, this is,
> using ragged-right.

Then I don't know what the right thing is here.  I agree with your design 
intention, but I can't see how to implement it robustly.

Even querying and storing the current state of adjustment in .SY to be
restored in .YS is likely to lead to subtle bugs, as I expect many
writing several .SY invocations in a row are likely to forget to close
any but the last one.
 
> > If you take that header, tinker it as you like, and put it in the tmac
> > directory of the CVS repo and tell me what the name is, I'll just "cvs
> > up" and start including it with .mso rather than dropping a copy in
> > each file I simplify.  I'd do the add myself but I don't have write
> > access yet.
> 
> Hmm.  I would rather like to have the .mso directly in `an-old.tmac'.
> I think I'll call the extension file `an-ext.tmac'.

I did 'cvs up' and no such file is in the archive yet.  I'll send you a copy
along with my patch set.

> > You might want to add the TQ (TP continuation macro) that's used in
> > a lot of these files.
> 
> Yes.

I'll include it in what I send you.

> > 3. Also rip out inclusions of the www and ttychar macro files.
> >    The code in those is totally nonportable.
> 
> Hmm.  tty-char.tmac has been there since the very beginning.  I've
> only updated the file to use groff syntax.
> 
> Instead of omitting I ask you to use the following code:
> 
>   .if n \
>   .  if \n(.g \
>   .    do mso tty-char.tmac

I'll reply to your later mail about this.

> It's not really clear to me what you mean with `macro coders'.

The people who wrote the troff macros in the existing pages.
-- 
                <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/";>Eric S. Raymond</a>