[groff] [patch] do not strip mdoc macros

[Ingo Schwarze]

Hi,

Dave Kemper wrote on Fri, Mar 01, 2019 at 03:21:02AM -0600:
> On 2/27/19, G. Branden Robinson <address@hidden> wrote:

>> Opinions on the utility of the stripper script among the groff
>> development team are mixed.

> Historically true, but the last couple of times the topic came up on
> this list, no one stepped forward to defend stripping. See threads
> starting at:
> 
>  - http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2017-11/msg00104.html
>  - http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2018-03/msg00048.html
> (which later strays from stripping in general to the implementation
> details of a -mom fix)
>  - http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2018-03/msg00054.html
> 
> Does anyone want to argue in favor of continuing to strip the macro
> packages?

It doesn't seem so...

To simplify the discussion and do one thing at a time, here is a
patch to stop stripping the mdoc macros.  Here are a few reasons
why stripping is a bad idea for mdoc in particular:

 1. The mdoc macros are already relatively complicated,
    consisting of multiple files and having their own subdir,
    so adding more complexity on top of that by stripping
    causes worse confusion than for other macros.

 2. Development of mdoc is slightly more active than, say,
    -ms, -me, or -mm, and easy access to the unstripped code
    is most useful when changes are being considered.

 3. Manual pages are typically of moderate size and doing your
    own programming in manual page source code is discouraged for
    mdoc in particular, so the performance cost should hardly matter
    in practice.

While here, and while the file names have to be change anyway, move
the mdoc files to a subdirectory just like after installation -
some people asked for that in the past already.

OK to commit the following patch (with a ChangeLog entry and a
slightly expanded commit message)?  The patch seems to work for
me, but the build system is considerably contorted, so it would
be nice if somebody could check it.

Yours,
  Ingo


commit 474d139c59a27cde3ea5e936fbdedeb1784ee852
Author: Ingo Schwarze <address@hidden>
Date:   Sun Mar 10 17:23:17 2019 +0100

    do not strip mdoc macros

diff --git a/tmac/doc-old.tmac-u b/tmac/doc-old.tmac
similarity index 100%
rename from tmac/doc-old.tmac-u
rename to tmac/doc-old.tmac
diff --git a/tmac/doc.tmac-u b/tmac/doc.tmac
similarity index 100%
rename from tmac/doc.tmac-u
rename to tmac/doc.tmac
diff --git a/tmac/doc-common-u b/tmac/mdoc/doc-common
similarity index 100%
rename from tmac/doc-common-u
rename to tmac/mdoc/doc-common
diff --git a/tmac/doc-ditroff-u b/tmac/mdoc/doc-ditroff
similarity index 100%
rename from tmac/doc-ditroff-u
rename to tmac/mdoc/doc-ditroff
diff --git a/tmac/doc-nroff-u b/tmac/mdoc/doc-nroff
similarity index 100%
rename from tmac/doc-nroff-u
rename to tmac/mdoc/doc-nroff
diff --git a/tmac/doc-syms-u b/tmac/mdoc/doc-syms
similarity index 100%
rename from tmac/doc-syms-u
rename to tmac/mdoc/doc-syms
diff --git a/tmac/tmac.am b/tmac/tmac.am
index bee6229c..b067b9a6 100644
--- a/tmac/tmac.am
+++ b/tmac/tmac.am
@@ -37,6 +37,8 @@ TMACNORMALFILES = \
   tmac/an-ext.tmac \
   tmac/ms.tmac \
   tmac/me.tmac \
+  tmac/doc.tmac \
+  tmac/doc-old.tmac \
   tmac/mdoc.tmac \
   tmac/pic.tmac \
   tmac/a4.tmac \
@@ -95,26 +97,26 @@ TMACNORMALFILES = \
 NORMALFILES = `echo $(TMACNORMALFILES) | sed -e "s|tmac/||g"`
 
 # TMACSTRIPFILES are built from their unstripped version (-u)
-TMACSTRIPFILES = tmac/e.tmac tmac/doc.tmac tmac/doc-old.tmac
+TMACSTRIPFILES = tmac/e.tmac
 
 # Files installed in tmacdir
 dist_tmac_DATA = $(TMACNORMALFILES) tmac/an.tmac tmac/s.tmac
 nodist_tmac_DATA = $(TMACSTRIPFILES) tmac/www.tmac
 
 TMACMDOCFILES = \
-  tmac/doc-common \
-  tmac/doc-ditroff \
-  tmac/doc-nroff \
-  tmac/doc-syms
+  tmac/mdoc/doc-common \
+  tmac/mdoc/doc-ditroff \
+  tmac/mdoc/doc-nroff \
+  tmac/mdoc/doc-syms
 MDOCFILES = `echo $(TMACMDOCFILES) | sed -e "s|tmac/||g"`
 mdocdir=$(tmacdir)/mdoc
 # Files installed in mdocdir
-nodist_mdoc_DATA = $(TMACMDOCFILES)
+dist_mdoc_DATA = $(TMACMDOCFILES)
 
 # Installed in localtmacdir
 dist_localtmac_DATA = tmac/man.local tmac/mdoc.local
 
-MOSTLYCLEANFILES += $(TMACMDOCFILES) tmac/www.tmac $(TMACSTRIPFILES) \
+MOSTLYCLEANFILES += tmac/www.tmac $(TMACSTRIPFILES) \
    tmac/stamp-wrap \
    tmac/*-wrap
 
@@ -139,13 +141,12 @@ EXTRA_DIST += \
 dist-hook: tmac-dist-hook
 tmac-dist-hook:
        chmod u+w $(distdir)/tmac
-       for f in $(TMACMDOCFILES) $(TMACSTRIPFILES); do \
+       for f in $(TMACSTRIPFILES); do \
          cp -f $(top_srcdir)/$$f-u $(distdir)/tmac; \
        done
 
-$(TMACMDOCFILES) $(TMACSTRIPFILES): 
-       $(MKDIR_P) $(top_builddir)/tmac
-       for f in $(TMACMDOCFILES) $(TMACSTRIPFILES); do \
+$(TMACSTRIPFILES):
+       for f in $(TMACSTRIPFILES); do \
           sed -f $(tmac_srcdir)/strip.sed $(top_srcdir)/$$f-u > 
$(top_builddir)/$$f; \
        done