Re: groff_mm : problems with .DS

[Anton Shepelev]

Damian McGuckin:

> I went back to a very old document using troff and
> MM.  It is a tutorial on using troff at the  macro
> package  level  without needing to know much about
> the low level troff. I was contemplating  updating
> it and putting it out there.
>
> I  am  trying  to use a display with fill mode on,
> i.e.
>
>    .DS 1 1
>
> The left margin is indented slightly. Unfortunate-
> ly,  the  right  margin  is not shrunk by the same
> amount with groff_mm.
>
> I know that the original  MM  package  handled  it
> flawlessly.
>
> Does  anybody  have a fix for this or do I need to
> sort out the bug?

Does  not  the  current  behavior  agree  with   the
groff_mm manpage, which states for .DS that:

   `rindent shortens the line length by that amount.

If you don't pass the `rindent' as the third parame-
ter, you get the same line length,  but  indented to
the right.  If it is not the intended behavior, then
it is a very long-standing bug in Groff's  implemen-
tation of MM that I have taken for granted more than
ten years. I think I can fix it if you can't  once I
am sure it *is* a bug.