Re: .ab oddity

[G. Branden Robinson]

Hi Peter,

At 2023-02-04T16:09:55-0500, Peter Schaffter wrote:
> The reasoning makes sense but now you have to jump through a hoop
> when you're using .ab for debugging.  I usually debug with the -z
> flag.  Formerly,
> 
>   echo -e ".nr foo 1\n.if r foo .ab\n" | groff -z
> 
> would helpfully spit out "User abort."  Now there's no way to know
> whether groff exited cleanly or aborted unless you add a string
> after .ab.  (A minor annoyance, but I thought I should mention it.)

There _is_ a way... :)

Something I recommend to all serious Unix users is to put the exit
status in the shell prompt.  I learned this trick early because too many
times when working interactively, by the time I realize I want to know
something's exit status, it is too late and $? has been clobbered.

Here's an abbreviated form of my Bash prompt.  I note that the "($?)"
part is thoroughly portable.  _All_ POSIX, Bourne-, or Korn-descended
shells should support it.

PS1='\D{%F} \t \s-\v [\l] {\j} ($?) \u@\h:\w !\!\$ '

Regards,
Branden

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