Re: What is the difference between GNU groff and Mac OS X groff

[John Gardner]

Use Homebrew <https://brew.sh/> to install the latest version of Groff:

$ brew install groff


For a full-blown setup:

$ brew install groff ghostscript grap less
$ brew tap alhadis/troff
$ brew install alhadis/troff/man-db dformat



> so if you care about up-to-date software, use a different operating system

Hah. If only it were that easy...

On Mon, 13 Apr 2020 at 12:43, Bjarni Ingi Gislason <address@hidden>
wrote:

> On Sun, Apr 12, 2020 at 01:27:54PM -0500, Peng Yu wrote:
> >  { echo ".ll 14.2i"; echo ".nr LL 14.2i"; cat
> > '/usr/share/man/man1/man.1'; } | tbl | /usr/bin/groff -Wall -mtty-char
> > -Tascii -mandoc -c | less -is
> >
> > When I use the above command (Mac OS X groff), it works fine.
> >
> >  { echo ".ll 14.2i"; echo ".nr LL 14.2i"; cat
> > '/usr/share/man/man1/man.1'; } | tbl | groff -Wall -mtty-char -Tascii
> > -mandoc -c | less -is
> >
> > When I use the above command (GNU groff), I see something like this.
> >
> > ESC[1m-M  pathESC[0m
> >
> > What options are needed to make GNU groff behave the same as Mac OS X
> > groff? Thanks.
> >
>
> Using on CentOS release 6.10 (Final)
>
> GNU groff version 1.18.1.4
> Copyright (C) 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
>
> less 436
> Copyright (C) 1984-2009 Mark Nudelman
>
>   show no escapes on my terminal.
>
>   Maybe you have to add the option -R to "less" to interpret the
> escapes.
>
>   Directing the output to a file could easy the reading (displaying) it
> with different commands,
>  like an editor, "less -r", "less -R", cat, etc.
>
> N.B.
>
>   For the meaning of escapes,
>  see for example the man page "console_codes(4)" or
>  look for the term "escape"
>  in you man database (man -k ...)).
>
>  For knowing the diference, you have to read the changelog from your
> distribution.
>
> --
> Bjarni I. Gislason
>
>