Re: Groff UTF-8 support? - Groff documentation section 5.1.9 Input Encodings

[ropers]

> Previously on Ropers, He Wrote:
>> The thing I've given up on was figuring out how to preview my
>> edits to groff.texi

Thus spake DaveKempera:
> This took me a while to figure out at first too, and the procedure
> gained an extra step since that time (when groff.texi was converted to
> groff.texi.in to require preprocessing) so it's harder to figure out
> today: a simple "makeinfo" on the .in file returns errors, and the
> novice won't know whether that's his fault or the file's.  Anyway,
> here's what I currently use as a quick-n-dirty previewer:
>
> sed s/@VERSION@/VERSION/ groff.texi.in | makeinfo --plaintext | less
>
> This loses all the info-ey aspects of it (to me, a plus), but shows
> you all the text in a formatted state.

Thanks for the help, Dave -- even if it still didn't get me there:

The file I downloaded and edited, and had trouble even viewing with
info(1), was the groff.texi from
<https://www.gnu.org/software/groff/manual/>.
I don't know where I would find a groff.texi.in or whether that's even
harder to deal with.  It's entirely possible I'm failing at the easier
problem of handling the groff.texi texinfo file.  First time for
everything, but I'm not feeling like a member of today's lucky ten
thousand[0] just yet:

For shits and giggles, I tried your groff.texi.in instructions on groff.texi.
Bold strategy, I know:

[lightly edited transcript follows; some whitespace and details removed:]
$ sed s/@VERSION@/VERSION/ groff.texi | makeinfo --plaintext | less
[1]+ Stopped sed s/@VERSION@/VERSION/ groff.texi | makeinfo --plaintext | less
$ The program 'makeinfo' is not installed. You can install it by typing:
sudo apt install texinfo
$ sudo apt install texinfo
<snip lines>
... done.
$ sed s/@VERSION@/VERSION/ groff.texi | makeinfo --plaintext | less
[less opens and shows this:]
-:18795: @include: could not find fdl.texi
(END)
[edited transcript ends]

Quoth the Branden:
> Sorry for the recent extra complication; it didn't occur to me that
> people wouldn't just have make(1) generate the real thing.
>
> $ make -C build doc/groff.txt
> make: Entering directory '.../groff/build'
>   GEN      doc/groff.txt
> make: Leaving directory '.../groff/build'
> $ less build/doc/groff.txt
>
> Regards,
> Branden

The only groff.txt I'm looking at is the one at
<https://www.gnu.org/software/groff/manual/>, which looks like it's
ISO 8859-1 [SCNR] formatted plaintext output, and doesn't look like
it's the Ayn Rand book source of anything.  I thought the groff.texi,
ibidem, was the fountainhead source, especially given how it's linked
as "Texinfo source".  If that is not so, and if there's some
groff.texi.in or even earlier progenitor I should be looking at
instead, I'm all ears.  Floppy ears prolly, because I'm still
flailing, it feels like, but there we are.  Contrary to Home Invasion
track #11, I *am* in fact new ta this.[1]

Thanks and regards,
Ian

(Ian Ropers)

footnotes:
[0] <xkcd.com/1053>
[1] <enwp.org/I_Ain't_New_Ta_This>