Re: Proper usage of .rd? Tutorial or Example?

[onf]

Hi Oliver,

On Tue Dec 3, 2024 at 9:57 PM CET, Oliver Corff wrote:
> I thought of precomposed files as well, but what I really want is to
> make groff collect the necessary data  during the compile run by
> prompting the user at the CLI, very much like the original mail user agent.
>
> [...]
>
> I could, of course, also write something in any script language that
> converts my input into roff data, but I thought it would be nice to have
> groff do the job directly.

I realized that it IS actually possible to use .rd to create a string:
  .de loadvar \" $1 = string name, $2 = prompt
  . di \\$1
  . rd \\$2
  . br
  . di
  . unformat \\$1
  . chop \\$1
  ..
  .loadvar name Name
  .loadvar email Email
  Your name is \*[name]
  and your email is \*[email].

However, I think what you are trying to do will end up being
unnecessarily complex in troff. Creating a script which prompts
the user and then generates troff syntax and runs troff on the
user's behalf will be much easier because troff sucks as a general
purpose programming language.[1] I speak from experience.

~ onf

[1] Not that TeX is any better in this regard.