Re: weird \s

[Larry Kollar]

Doug McIlroy <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> I've been writing the ugly \s360 since ancient times. Groff still thinks
> this means a 36-point 0. But man 7 groff says it means a 3-point 60:
> 
>       \s±N   Set/increase/decrease the point size to/by N scaled points; N is
>              a one-digit number in the range 1 to 9.  Same as ps request.
> 
> By convention ± is optional. Groff does as the man page says when
> a sign is present, but does as Joe Ossanna did otherwise.
> 
> I would happily endure the breaking of a whole lot of old [gt]roff for the
> sake of making the man page true. That would unify the syntax of
> \s, \n, and \*. It would be as easy to recover from the change
> (with a sed script) as was groff's imposition of a gap in .sp12.

I have to agree with this. If people continue to format new content
with groff, then \s40 shouldn’t be a secret handshake for new users.
As for older documents, isn’t that what compatibility mode is for?

        Larry