Re: [Groff] Question on string registers and requests

[Larry Jones]

Clarke Echols writes:
> 
> andlabs wrote:
> > Hello. I noticed, that given
> > 
> > .ds U \\s-2UNIX\\s0
> > 
> > in a troff file after -ms, and neither -ms nor that file define a macro .U,
> > I could do
> > 
> > .U
> > 
> > and it would be replaced with the contents of that string. Is that a feature
> > of groff? I'd like to clear things up. Thanks.
> 
> Doesn't work that way.

Yes, it does.  And it "always" has.  It was an undocumented feature (or
bug, if you prefer) of nroff/troff that groff has preserved.  However,
there's no good reason to ever make use of it, so don't.

-Larry Jones

How am I supposed to learn surgery if I can't dissect anything? -- Calvin