Re: [groff] 01/03: **/*.man: Eliminate blank lines in man pages

[Ingo Schwarze]

Hi Doug,

Doug McIlroy wrote on Thu, Jan 23, 2020 at 04:58:11PM -0500:

> I almost agree with Ingo. A blank line in tbl is generally equivalent to
> a table line in which all fields are empty. It is also generally equivalent
> to .sp 1.

I just noticed that they also differ in the presence of the "allbox"
option or with other lines specified in the table layout, see the
example below.  Yes, tables are somewhat tricky...

Thanks to Branden for already restoring the blank lines that
triggered this thread.

Yours,
  Ingo

> These interpretations differ in the presence of .blm or .ns.
> By decorating every table line with an initial \&, tbl has picked the
> former interpretation.
> 
> Doug


 $ cat tmp.man
.TH TEST 1
.SH NAME
test
.SH DESCRIPTION
initial text
.TS
allbox;
L.
one

two
.sp
three
.TE
.PP
final text

 $ groff -t -man -T ascii tmp.man
TEST(1)                  General Commands Manual                 TEST(1)

NAME
       test

DESCRIPTION
       initial text

       +------+
       |one   |
       +------+
       |      |
       +------+
       |two   |
       +------+
       |      |
       |three |
       +------+
       final text

OpenBSD                                                          TEST(1)