Re: An example of a multiplication table: some unresolved questions

[Oliver Corff]

Dear Thomas,

that works like a charm. Thank you indeed!

On 30/05/2023 10:09, Thomas Dupond via wrote:
> Dear Oliver,
>
> Using .nf is also important but I think it is not clear from the
> manual (either info or groff(7)) that this is needed, if only for
> getting rid of the 'cant break line' errors.
>
> I think this achieves the desired result:
>
> .nf
> .ta 2mR T 2mR
> .nr x 1
> .nr y 1
> .nr p 0
> .while (\n[x] <= 12) \{\
> .while (\n[y] <= 12) \{\
> .nr p \n[x]*\n[y]
> .nr y +1
>     \n[p]    \c
> .\}
> .br
> .nr x +1
> .nr y 1
> .\}
>
> As you can see I added a tab character before and after \n[p] to
> achieve this.  The previous example did not work because I did not
> remember that you should begin with a tab character.
>
> For this kind of thing I tend to rely on the Unix Text Processing book
> more and more.  A very similar example of what you are trying to
> achieve is described on page 66 (4. nroff and troff > Page Layout >
> Setting tabs).  You can get this book here:
>
> http://chuzzlewit.co.uk/utp_book-1.1.pdf
This book has long been known to me, but unfortunately I never consulted
the mentioned section before.

> Also there is no need to specify the steps x or y should take if auto
> incremented because we don't use that here.  The step value is
> interesting if you use \n+[x] or \n+[y] somewhere in your code. There
> are more examples in section 5.6.3 of the info manual.

You are right, the increment steps for x and y are not needed. They were
left-overs from earlier experiments with steps and counters, I left them
in the code as they did no harm.

Thank you again!

Best regards,

Oliver.



--

Dr. Oliver Corff
Mail:oliver.corff@email.de