Re: [Groff] RE: Small bug in groff 1.19.2 footnote number contro

[Nick Stoughton]

On Mon, 2007-09-17 at 00:25 +0100, address@hidden wrote:
> On 16-Sep-07 22:15:55, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
> >> > I don't think classic troff mm's ":p" has ever been in groff's mm,
> >> > which has used "ft*nr" as long as I've known it (about 1990)!
> >> 
> >> The obvious "solution" to that "problem" is to add:
> >> 
> >>      .als :p ft*nr
> >> 
> >> to the mm macros like is done for other obscure number registers.
> > 
> > In case this fixes the problem I'll apply this change to the source
> > file.  Luke, can you verify it?
> > 
> >     Werner
> 
> I would like to suggest that, before anything is done generally
> in groff, we should get to the bottom of where this ":p" is
> coming from.
> 
I have an old dwb copy of mm (the one with comments removed and
"extraneous" spaces removed) ... and it does indeed use the :p number
register for this purpose. At least, it has such a register:

.nr:p 0 1 

and the footnote marker, as described in man 7 groff_mm, uses this
register:
.dsF \u\\n+(:p\d

It is conditionally reset to 0 during the .H macro.


> I don't have access to macro files for other troffs at the
> moment, but I've browsed around in such documentation as
> I can find, without seeing a reference to a number register
> ":p" in mm. Not that this disproves its existence, since
> a lot of troff documentation (indeed like a lot of groff's)
> doe not refer much to "internal registers"; nor have I got
> access to much documentation!
> 
> Perhaps ":p" is specific to a particular version of troff,
> as used by Luke's wife for her thesis. If it's not generic,
> then I doubt we should add too many such "special patches"
> to groff.
> 
> So let's wait for Luke to tell us more detail! In particular,
> which "make" of troff, what year, version of mm macros?

Since mine is stripped of comments, I can't tell you the version number,
simply that to the best of my knowledge this is original DWB.
> 
> Best wishes to all,
> Ted.
> 
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> E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <address@hidden>
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> Date: 17-Sep-07                                       Time: 00:25:15
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