Re: [Groff] RE: Small bug in groff 1.19.2 footnote number contro

[Gunnar Ritter]

(Ted Harding) <address@hidden> wrote:

> I don't have access to macro files for other troffs at the
> moment, but I've browsed around in such documentation as
> I can find, without seeing a reference to a number register
> ":p" in mm.

<http://heirloom.cvs.sourceforge.net/heirloom/heirloom-doctools/troff/troff.d/tmac.d/mmt?revision=1.7&view=markup>

This is a nearly unaltered variant of the original -mm.
However, it does not include comments since there was a
tool to strip them from installed macro files, and Sun
has provided the installed variant only (no idea if they
even have the full source code at all).

As far as I know, Sun is the only company which has made
the original -mm macros available as Open Source. However,
-mm macros including comments and the original paper about
them ("Memorandum Macros" by Smith and Mashey) had been
available from SCO with System III under more restrictive
conditions until a few years ago. From the comments, one
learns that :p is the footnote number within the text. It
is used but not documented in the paper.

> So let's wait for Luke to tell us more detail! In particular,
> which "make" of troff, what year, version of mm macros?

All variants of the original -mm which I have seen so far
have been very similar. It is likely that they all use the
:p register in the same way.

        Gunnar