Re: GNUism in groff tests

[Ingo Schwarze]

Hi Branden,

G. Branden Robinson wrote on Tue, Dec 31, 2019 at 04:34:56PM +1100:

> I still prefer my here document because it _looks_ like an actual
> groff document, and therefore more valuable for pedagogical purposes,

I agree that your here document is the most readable of the three,
and i also agree that readablity matters, so i even agree that
losing it would be sad.

> but if I have to give it up, I prefer your printf recipe to Ingo's.

Yes, i agree that Ralph's printf(1) approach is better than what i did.

> *roff macro writers (like us!) who can count long repeated sequences
> of uninterrupted backslashes by eye with ease are to be pitied, not
> emulated.

While i did once maintain a program (a web application serving
scientific papers written in LaTeX) where i needed \\\\\\\\
(eight consecutive backslashes) at some places, i don't claim
being good at counting escapes, and i certainly hate it when i
have to count escapes.

I merely tried to get rid of what i took for a bashism; the proposed
cure certainly wasn't perfect, and i'm no longer sure what exactly
needs to be fixed in this respect, if anything.

I won't touch this here document until it's clear whether there
is an ksh(1) bug.  Working on shell bugs tends to be very time
comsuming, so there may be a substantial delay, which shouldn't
be a problem because this doesn't harm groff's usefulness.

Yours,
  Ingo