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Re: [Groff] tbl problems in man


From: Werner LEMBERG
Subject: Re: [Groff] tbl problems in man
Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2007 07:13:43 +0100 (CET)

> The worst case, if a viewer didn't implement the percent extension,
> is that we'd get lumpy tables as we do now.

No.  The worst case is a viewer which uses an older groff version
without support for the percent extension -- the table completely
disappears:

  .TH

  xxx

  .TS
  y y.
  foo bar
  .TE

  yyy

    -> tbl:aaa:6: unrecognised format `y'
       tbl:aaa:6: giving up on this table

I doubt whether this is an acceptable solution.

> But I'm not really worried about this, [...]

I am!

> But what Michael is really asking for is for gtbl to handle T{ T}
> blocks better even *without* some new feature.  Which, I think, is
> an eminently reasonable request and where we ought to be focusing
> our energies.

Indeed.  The best so far is Gunnar's solution to emulate your
suggested percent keyletter extension.  It's OK for me to use that for
table-like data which would need more a single column with T{ T} --
something which I've actually never seen in a man page, but you have a
much larger sample base to check.  However, for simple list-like
structures consisting of a label and an explanation I still think that
TP/TQ is the way to go; and for man pages within groff I actually ask
you to use it.


    Werner




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