Re: [Groff] ".if '...'...' \# comments ..." Bug?

[Alejandro López-Valencia]

On Sun, 11 Apr 2004 12:49:43 -0500 (CDT), Andrew J. Piziali wrote in 
<address@hidden>:

>Why?  Because groff ignores the \#, as well as the rest of the line,
>including the newline.  In the words of the groff info page:
>
>     To avoid all this, `gtroff' has a new comment mechanism using the
>     `\#' escape.  This escape works the same as `\"' except that the
>     newline is also ignored:
>
>
>          Test
>          \# comment
>          Test
>
>     produces
>
>
>          Test Test
>
>     as expected.

1. When you end a line with \ you have for all practical purposes added an 
unpaddable space at the end of the line, not escaped it.

2. Quoting from groff(7):

"""
The roff language is line-oriented.  There are only two kinds of lines, 
control lines and text lines.  The control lines start with  a  control 
character,  by  default  a period "."  or a single quote "'"; all other 
lines are text lines.
"""

and

"""
Requests are written on a line of their own starting with a dot `.'  or a 
"'", whereas Escape sequences are in-line functions and in-word formatting 
elements starting with a backslash `\'.
"""

That is, all requests are of the forms: (a) "<eol>." for line breaking 
requests and (b) "<eol>'" for non-line breaking requests.


3. ``\#'' eliminates the <eol> and therefore (a) makes your conditional 
invalid, and (b) of course it works as you show above.

Therefore:

.if '\*[FunctionalVerificationAspectsFigure]'' .  ds 
FunctionalVerificationAspectsFigure 999

is not valid.

Alejo


--
Alejandro López-Valencia
http://dradul.tripod.com/
The limits of my language are the limits of my world.
                                    (L. Wittgenstein)