Re: [Groff] man makro oddity

[walter harms]

Werner LEMBERG schrieb:
>> i was playing with man pages and found by chance that empty lines
>> before .TH seems to confuse groff.
> 
> `Confuse'?  I don't think so.
> 
>> <code>
>> ./"
>>
>> ./"
>>
>> ./"
>> .TH The header
>>
>> ....
>> </code>
>>
>> works fine (no warnings what so ever) but has am empty page in front
>> and changes in page numbering are ignored.
>>
>> <code>
>> ./"
>> ./"
>> ./"
>> .TH The header
>>
>> ....
>> </code>
>>
>> But this produces the desired output.  Is is possible to have a
>> warning, when accidentally empty lines in front are found?
> 
> It's probably not worth the time to fix this.  Note that you can
> concatenate various man pages – in both man and mdoc formats, IIRC;
> .TH then needs to start a new page.  The result you are seeing is a
> side effect of this.
> 
> 

I do not think there is anything to "fix", it is simply a question of helping
users. Empty lines before .TH are most likely not what the user intended. *if* 
some can
fix that easy (read: print a warning) someone should do.

re,
 wh