Re: [Groff] ?Bug in tbl?

[Werner LEMBERG]

> Namely: tbl often has to cope with stuff that no-one can know
> the length of until troff has finished with it. In particular,
> equations entered using things like ${x + y} over {u + w}$.
> 
> Now, tbl does have a mechanism for creating number-registers
> which will be evaluated by troff, precisely for this kind of
> thing. So I'm wondering why this did not come into play here!

Well, this is a `feature' of tbl which should perhaps documented
better.  Here a snippet from the source code which tbl creates for
your example:

.nr 3w0 \n[3w0]>?\w\[tbl]\fB\s[24]ZIMBABWE\s0\fP\[tbl]
.nr 3w0 \n[3w0]>?\w\[tbl]\f[BI]\s[18]Translation\s0\fP\[tbl]
.nr 3w0 \n[3w0]>?\w\[tbl]\s[18]God bless Africa,\[tbl]
.nr 3w0 \n[3w0]>?\w\[tbl]Let her fame spread far and wide\[tbl]
.nr 3w0 \n[3w0]>?\w\[tbl]Hear our prayer:\[tbl]
.nr 3w0 \n[3w0]>?\w\[tbl]May God bless us!\[tbl]
.nr 3w0 \n[3w0]>?\w\[tbl]Come, Spirit, come!\[tbl]
.nr 3w0 \n[3w0]>?\w\[tbl]Come! Holy Spirit!\[tbl]
.nr 3w0 \n[3w0]>?\w\[tbl]Come and bless us, her children!\[tbl]

As you can see, tbl works (not surprisingly) line by line.


    Werner