Re: [Groff] LL Usage in an-old.tmac Incompatible with man Program on GNU/Linux

[Werner LEMBERG]

> > Hmm, my `man' program (version 2.4.1, 07 September 2001) uses this
> > pipe for a wide screen:
> >
> >  sh -c (echo '.ll 132n'; /usr/bin/zsoelim /usr/X11R6/man/man7/X.7) \
> >
> >  | /usr/bin/tbl \
> >  | /usr/bin/nroff -mandoc -mandocdb -rLL=132n -rLT=132n -Tlatin1 \
> >
> >  ...
>
> You use Debian, right?

No.  I use SuSE 9.1 which comes with man-db.

> This uses `man-db', rather than `man'; but notice that it too
> attempts to inject a `.ll' request into the pipe.  This is
> presumably to satisfy non-groff implementations of `nroff', for
> which the accompanying `tmac.an' probably doesn't comprehend this
> `LL' usage; indeed, isn't the `-rLL=132n' incompatible with standard
> UNIX nroff?  (I'll check on the Solaris box at work tomorrow, to see
> what it's `tmac.an' does).

Hmm, it's not incompatible, but classical troff doesn't have -r, so it
should be ignored.

> > >   .ie n .nr LL 78n
> > >
> > >   .ll \\n[LL]u
> > >
> > > override the injected `.ll' request, forcing an output line
> > > length of 78n, regardless of the width of the console display.
> >
> > This is the only way to provide a default width.
>
> Accepted, but what's wrong with nroff's own default width?

groff's nroff use the same default width as all other devices, namely
6.5i, which is 65 columns.  IMHO it's the job of the macro package to
set a suitable default width (as does -ms, for example).

> > > Looking in an-old.tmac, it would seem that the LL register is
> > > mostly redundant;
> >
> > I won't remove it -- I want orthogonality with other macro
> > packages.

BTW, I've looked into the Solaris `an' macro file and found this in
the `TH' macro:

  .ll 6.5i
  .nr LL \\n(.l

This basically means that you can't modify the width of man pages.
Does `man' on Solaris really adjusts the width of man pages to a
changed terminal width?

> No problem -- I'll keep my patched version in site-tmac, so I can
> have the behaviour I want.

It might be a good idea to report this to the `man' maintainers so
that they can insert a proper `-rLL=...' call similar to `man-db'.


    Werner