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[groff] 16/72: PROBLEMS: Update advice re: a clever man(7) trick.
From: |
G. Branden Robinson |
Subject: |
[groff] 16/72: PROBLEMS: Update advice re: a clever man(7) trick. |
Date: |
Sun, 23 Oct 2022 22:25:35 -0400 (EDT) |
gbranden pushed a commit to branch master
in repository groff.
commit 7ae13b8817df5a4c9dc4f4d3c5793973ec8c2d1a
Author: G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>
AuthorDate: Thu Oct 20 06:36:25 2022 -0500
PROBLEMS: Update advice re: a clever man(7) trick.
---
PROBLEMS | 24 +++++++++++++++---------
1 file changed, 15 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)
diff --git a/PROBLEMS b/PROBLEMS
index 697c3c486..dc398e3db 100644
--- a/PROBLEMS
+++ b/PROBLEMS
@@ -248,25 +248,31 @@ in the \n[rst] and \n[rsb] registers; these are groff
extensions.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* While formatting a manual page, groff complains about not being able
- to break lines. The problem seems to be caused by a line like:
- .TP \w'label'+2
+ to break lines. A line like the following seems to cause this.
+ .TP \w'label'+2
-The -man documentation says that the default scaling indicator for TP
-macro is `n'. The groff -man macros implement this correctly, so that
-the argument is evaluated as if it were
+The groff_man(7) man page says that the default scaling unit for the
+`TP` macro is 'n' (ens), and that is how the groff man macros are
+implemented. Consequently, the macro argument above is evaluated
+equivalently to this expression.
\w'label'n+2n
-The Unix -man macros don't implement this correctly (probably because
-it's hard to do in Unix troff); they just append `n' to the entire
-argument, so that it is evaluated as if it were
+AT&T troff's man macros don't implement this correctly (probably because
+it's hard to do in that troff); instead, they append 'n' to the entire
+argument, so that it is evaluated as if it were written as follows.
\w'label'u+2n
-The solution is to fix the manual page:
+The solution is to fix the manual page.
.TP \w'label'u+2
+It might be better still to avoid such computations in macro arguments,
+however; programs that are not *roff formatters that attempt to
+interpret man pages can lack the ability to interpret numeric
+expressions. See section "Portability" of groff_man_style(7).
+
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* I'm having problems formatting man pages produced by the perl
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