Re: [Groff] CVS diff for tbl expanded column enhancement

[Werner LEMBERG]

> This is the description of that feature (trivially modified).
> 
> "A key letter may be followed by the letter "x" or "X" to indicate
> an expanded column.  If the modifier is used, the width of the
> corresponding column will be increased to use the remainder of the
> line length after the widths of the other columns have been
> calculated.  This feature is useful for a column containing text
> blocks where it is desired to make the column as wide as possible
> without exceeding the line length.  Only one expanded-width column
> is permitted for each table, so this modifier is limited to a single
> column in each table."

Steven,


I want to generalize your code so that multiple `x' modifiers are
allowed.  Additionally, Eric Raymond has already contributed
experimental code to evenly distribute all available space for blocks
(which partly collides with your patch, but probably gives a better
point to start with my intended implementation).

To do that, I need some more information, and since I don't have a DWB
tbl binary which supports the `x' modifier, I ask you to conduct some
experiments.

  . How does `x' interact with `w' and `e'?  Theoretically, tbl must
    not allow `e' and `x' at the same time; IMHO, the default action
    should be that a warning gets emitted, and `x' overrides `e'.  The
    same for `w' in case the width value caused by `x' is smaller.
    However, I'm unsure whether `x' should really be stronger than
    `w'.

  . What happens if the global `expand' option is used together with
    `x'?  Is there a difference in behaviour?  I can imagine that `x'
    has no effect whatsoever if `expand' isn't active.  On the other
    hand, what happens if a table is wider than the current line
    length?


   Werner