Re: [Groff] Compression support for files?

[Werner LEMBERG]

>> *However*, if you really like to play around file issues: A sorely
>> needed feature is integration of the kpathsea library into groff!
> 
> Having browsed https://tug.org/texinfohtml/kpathsea.html I see it
> searches for a file through a series of directories, perhaps
> recursively, with variable support and shell-type expansions,
> variable, brace, tilde, etc., with a database for quicker lookups
> next time.

Exactly.  Sorry for being too terse.

>> In particular, it would allow to have not a single `download' file
>> for grops but a series of such files, and it shouldn't be too hard
>> to implement cumulative reading.
> 
> Could you expand on that a bit please; I'm probably not the only one
> not grasping the need without your insight.

Here some text from section 5.2.1 of the kpathsea link.  Think of
replacing `texmf.cnf' with grops's `download' file (together with more
fiddling, but I think you get the idea):

  Kpathsea reads all `texmf.cnf' files in the search path, not just
  the first one found; definitions in earlier files override those in
  later files.  Thus, if the search path is ‘.:$TEXMF’, values from
  ./texmf.cnf override those from $TEXMF/texmf.cnf.


    Werner