Re: [Groff] W.: [bug #42978] tbl does not restore the tab settings

[Carsten Kunze]

>   I did make a change to the "an-old.tmac" file to preserve the tab
> settings.  I checked other files and they do also contain the TS/TE
> macros.  Instead of making the same change in more than one place, I
> find it would be simpler to make the changes in one place, "tbl".

tbl and *roff are not just "man page tools".  They should not be changed just 
to someones current particular flavor.

tbl does use ".ta".  And it is a general purpose preprocessor (i.e. not just 
for man mages).
If someone creates a document and sets .ta to some value, how should tbl reset 
this
value?

Yes, the man macros could save the setting in .TS and restore in .TE when they 
use
variables as arguments for .ta.

Yes, it should be documented that tbl does "overwrite" the .ta setting without 
restoring
it.