Re: [Groff] dynamic grap ticks

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi James,

> At first I tried 
> 
>       ticks at copy "t"
> 
> which didn't work

No, `copy' is a top-level command, just like `ticks'.  It can't appear
anywhere you'd like t's input;  it's not part of a separate
preprocessor, for instance.

> Now I finally understand something that, to me at least, isn't
> terribly obvious from the documentation: the "sh" commands are
> executed first, before graphing starts, not at the point they appear
> in the document.  

That's correct.  sh(1) is run by the parser as soon as the end of the
command is seen.  `copy' works similarly.  The pic code for the graph
starts to be output when the end of the graph definition has been seen
by the same parser.

Makes sense really, you often want to sh and then copy, modifying the
graph definition that's underway.

Cheers, Ralph.