[address@hidden: Re: weird \s]

[Larry McVoy]

Doug and I talked about this off line.  Doug predates all versions of
roff, he watched it being developed and used it.  I think his opinion
matters.

In the message below the "Am I wrong wanting" and the specs are me,
his response is below that.

Anyone arguing for \sDD is just misguided.  If you want two things
it is \s(12, if you want N things, groff gave you \s[1234].  

Could we please just converge on this spec?  I'm old and tired but
if we can get agreement on this and noone wants to do the code I'll
take a swing at it.

----- Forwarded message from Doug McIlroy <address@hidden> -----

Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2020 18:36:39 -0400
From: Doug McIlroy <address@hidden>
To: address@hidden
Subject: Re: weird \s

Am I wrong in wanting

        \sDwhatever     - set size to D and print whatever
        \s(DDwhatever   - set size to DD and print whatever
        \s[DD]whatever  - set size to DD and print whatever (groffism)

That's exactly what the man page says--but not what texinfo says.
I am all for it. The current state, in case you missed it is
that \sDD sets the size to DD, provided the first D is one of 1,2,3.
Otherwise the second D is part of "whatever". This special pleading
was (barely) plausible for the original C/A/T phototypesetter,
which could not produce sizes greater than 36.

----- End forwarded message -----

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Larry McVoy                  lm at mcvoy.com             
http://www.mcvoy.com/lm