Re: [Groff] odd interaction between .bl and .(c in -me macros

[Dave Kemper]

On Sun, Jan 1, 2012 at 9:34 AM, Tadziu Hoffmann
<address@hidden> wrote:
> Fortunately, you can fix the problem in the same way as before:
>
>  .bl 49
>  .pp
>  Here is text.
>  .pp
>  Here is text.
>  .(c
>  \!.ne 20
>  \!.rs
>  .bl 20
>  center me
>  .bl 20
>  .)c
>  .pp
>  Here is text.

That does get the job done.  However, knowing that you need to add
those \! lines to have things work as expected requires more knowledge
of the implementation of the -me macro set than I think is warranted.
The -me documentation doesn't specify which macros are implemented using
diversions, and the average user isn't going to read the source to figure
that out.

So, perhaps the patch to the .bl macro as in your subsequent example
ought to be applied to groff's e.tmac (maybe with a comment to explain
what is going on, though e.tmac is pretty light on comments to begin
with, and they all get stripped from the installed version anyway).
Does that seem like a reasonable change?  If so, I can go ahead and
create the patch file if you don't want to do it.

Thanks, Tadziu, for all your work on this.