Re: [Groff] refer help

[Peter Schaffter]

On Sat, Sep 04, 2010, Ralph Corderoy wrote:
> 
> Hi Peter,
> 
> > The first is that refer doesn't appear to recognize named glyphs in a
> > refer database, eg "Encyclop\[ae]dia Britannica" comes out as
> > "Encyclop dia Britannica" and "Antoine de St-Exup\['e]ry" as "Antoine
> > de St-Exup ry".  Is there a solution to this, or a known workaround?
> 
> Have you a little example?  A small database, groff input, and the
> command line to show it up?  For those of us who don't use refer much it
> means we have something to follow through the source code with.

As I pointed out, the problem seems to be in the mom macro file I'm
working on, so I'll forego an example for now.

> > %A \C'Blow2'\[duplicate]
> > ...
> > Is \C the best choice, or is there another?
> 
> \w?

\w, in a ref block, prints the literal result of \w.

> Or is
> 
>     .de foo
>     ..
>     %A \*[foo Blow2]\[duplicate]
> 
> valid?

\*[foo Blow2], with macro "foo" blank, as above, prints the entry
correctly but refer doesn't sort it (probably something to do with
the asterisk).  It winds up at the top of the bibliography.

%A \C'Blow2'\[duplicate] works reliably, so it's probably the best
solution.  The "2" is abitrary.  Any alphanumeric(s) after the
author's name maintains the sort order provided the same one(s)
is/are used for subsequent duplicate entries.

Still not happy about refer not having a mechanism for dealing with
multiple works by the same author, but it's way beyond my expertise
to fix that.

-- 
Peter Schaffter

Author of The Binbrook Caucus
http://www.schaffter.ca