Re: [groff] mom date string

[Robert Thorsby]

On 09/07/19 12:30:56, Ingo Schwarze wrote:
> Kirill S Sapelkin wrote on Mon, Jul 08, 2019 at 07:19:17PM -0700:
> > Could not find a way to automaticaly insert the date at compile  
> time other than:
> >
> > .DATE
> > .sy date '+%e %B %Y'  > dater
> > .so dater
> > .sy rm dater
>
>
> Logically, inserting the date at compile time doesn't really make  
> sense.  You don't want the date of compiling there, you want the date  
> the letter was written and originally sent.  So there is really value  
> in having the author enter the date manually.

I can endorse Ingo's remarks with a personal horror story.  When  
FrameMaker was release for Windows I played with it, including the  
automatic date feature.  After a document had been finalised, every  
time I opened it thereafter the date changed -- nasty when I printed a  
copy of a letter I had sent some weeks earlier only to discover it bore  
the current date.

I've been gunshy ever since.

Nowadays, (a) I don't use FrameMaker, (b) I don't use Windows, and (c)  
in groff I define the date as a string in the preamble.

Robert