Re: [groff] Changing A Defined String

[Steffen Nurpmeso]

Tadziu Hoffmann <address@hidden> wrote:
 |> Why this?  If i use \\*[DATE*SHORT] anything is fine, so it is
 |> because the macro is evaluated while the string is defined.
 |
 |Yes.
 |
 |If you use the "string" like this:
 |
 |  Some text before \*[DATE*SHORT], and some text after
 |
 |the expansion will yield
 |
 |  Some text before \c
 |  .XX \\*[DATE*FULL]
 |  , and some text after
 |
 |and this in turn will eventually expand to
 |
 |  Some text before \c
 |  December 31, 2038<no_newline>
 |  , and some text after
 |
 |giving as the total effect
 |
 |  Some text before \c
 |  December 31, 2038, and some text after
 |
 |which is completely okay in running text.
 |
 |When using it as
 |
 |  .ds LH Formatted on \*[DATE*SHORT]
 |
 |it will yield
 |
 |  .ds LH Formatted on \c
 |  December 31, 2038
 |
 |which simply stores "\c" in the string LH, and writes the
 |date into the running text instead.

Ok.  Thanks, yes i am very rusty, it has been a long time since
i looked into the macro side..

 |> Is this restriction documented somewhere?  If not
 |> it is a bug to keep on the TODO list, thank you!
 |
 |It's not a bug, it's a reminder not to use tricks that confuse
 |strings and macros, even if they are treated internally very
 |similarly during expansion.

It seems to me it would be nice to have some kind of "auto-div"
that is active as long as a .ds creation is in progress, so that
this is kept together.?  What do you mean?

A nice rest weekend from my side,
Ciao

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)