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Re: [groff] soelim: Ignoring Some ’so’ Requests


From: Jeff Conrad
Subject: Re: [groff] soelim: Ignoring Some ’so’ Requests
Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2018 00:22:42 +0000

Ralph,

> > 'so /usr/lib/tmac/tmac.m
> > This probably wouldn’t be the preferred way of doing things anymore
> 
> I see no reason to demote it.  :-)

I was getting more at using “.mso”, but for the example above, the file
well might not be on the macro path.  I think it’s better to use “'”
than a space because what’s going on is more readily apparent—at least
to those who understand the idiom.

> > The careful reader of the groff soelim man page will see that the same
> > thing can be accomplished by putting whitespace between the standard
> > control character and the request (e.g., “. so”)

> But doesn't suggest why that's useful.

Which invites the question, “Is it still useful?”  In the old days,
reducing the amount of superfluous material run through preprocessors
made a difference; nowadays, I’m not sure it matters.  But sometimes I
don’t want stuff like a macro package run through certain preprocessors.
For example, I’ve long used a sed(1) script that, among other things,
converts “"”, “``”, and “''” to \[lq] and \[rq] as appropriate.  It
works pretty well with text source, but I’m not sure I always trust it
with macros.  So I’ll “.so” a text file but “'so” a macro package.

> Whilst looking at this, I noticed groff's info says
>        ...
>        Since 'gtroff' replaces the 'so' request with the contents of
>        'file', it makes a difference whether the data is terminated with
>     .  .  .
> Should groff's documentation be
> encouraging such practice?  Does it work?
>     .  .  .
> I think groff's documentation should acknowledge an old technique, say
> it was never a good idea, that it doesn't work with groff, and that `\c'
> can achieve the desired result.

To be honest, I’d never seen a need to so a file without a final newline
(perhaps some type of data-merge application would qualify), but should
such a need arise, Ralph’s suggestion seems the way to go.  Especially
because it actually works.

And the documentation should probably eventually be corrected.

Jeff Conrad


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