Re: Release Candidate 1.23.0.rc1

[G. Branden Robinson]

Hi Dave,

At 2021-04-07T20:55:58-0500, Dave Kemper wrote:
> On 11/12/20, Bertrand Garrigues via <groff@gnu.org> wrote:
> > Release candidate 1.23.0.rc1 is now available from GNU's alpha ftp.  The
> > version can be downloaded here:
> >
> >   https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/groff/.
> 
> rc1 from November is still the latest one on this page, so I presume
> no others have been created yet.

That's my understanding.  I inquired after an rc2 a few weeks ago[1] but
nothing has come of it as yet.

> I've noticed a possible issue in it.
> 
> In past releases, groff's -b option activated backtraces for every
> warning or error.  In rc1, backtraces appear to be on by default, and
> there is no corresponding option to turn them off.  A simple example
> is the command
> 
> $ echo '.tm \n(ZZ' | groff -ww
> 
> Under groff 1.22.4, this emitted to stderr:
> 
> troff: <standard input>:1: warning: number register 'ZZ' not defined
> 
> But under rc1 it emits:
> 
> troff: backtrace: file '<standard input>':1
> troff: <standard input>:1: warning: number register 'ZZ' not defined
> 
> The rc1 documentation still says that -b turns backtraces on, implying
> they should be off by default.  And it lists no new option for turning
> them off if they are already on.

You didn't indicate how you're invoking the release candidate groff; if
you're using test-groff, you should be aware that this wrapper script
turns on all warnings and backtraces.

If you got the above behavior from a "make install"ed groff 1.23.0.rc1,
then I agree that this does sound like a bug.

Regards,
Branden

[1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2021-02/msg00050.html

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