Re: [Groff] gtbl, T{ ... T} doesn't work?

[Sverre Slotte]

A trick I have been using is to utilise groff's own mapping mechanism 
for achieving vertically aligned source code.

Given an original code-fragment like this:

.TS
tab(:);
l l l l.
foo:bar:2:xxx
this is a longer field:right!:89:xyzzy
a:b:3:d
.TE

one can use .char to achieve something like this:

.char _ \&
.TS
tab(:);
l l l l.
foo_____________________:bar______:_2:xxx
this is a longer field__:right!___:89:xyzzy
a_______________________:b________:_3:d
.TE
.rchar _

When executed with "groff -t -Tlatin1 | head" both examples produce:

foo                      bar      2    xxx
this is a longer field   right!   89   xyzzy
a                        b        3    d

I normally use some character from the upper half of the Latin1 
character set as filler character, e.g. the bullet character.

As this method relies only on groff it has the added benefit of 
working on platforms of limited capacity with no shell-escape mechanism.

This is something I came up with years ago, and I discussed it with 
James Clark in private e-mail. I might have posted it here before, 
cannot remember.

One thing I would have liked to acheive was to use the space character 
as filler. However, I do not know how to map space to \&. Maybe 
somebody on the list can help me out -- how do I achieve the 
equivalent of

.char <space> \&

in groff?

Best regards, Sverre

--
Sverre Slotte  |  Oppibergsgränden 2 D  |  Phone  +358  9 8558007
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