Re: Groff examples repository

[Thomas Dupond]

Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu> wrote:

> https://froude.eu/groff/examples/reflow.html is a very cleanly written and
> interesting demo. The following comments might perfect it even further.
>
> It would be helpful to remark that .YY is a dumping ground, never to be
> used.
>
> Point out that EB need not be defined. It carries the .tm for the demo, but
> is irrelevant to the underlying purpose. Nevertheless, it's useful to
> illustrate that the macro-end indicator will be expanded if it's defined.
> (But see below.)

I added both of your explanations to the page, I hope that it's as clear
as you are.

> At first glance I read "Text before" and "Text after" as headings for
> paragraphs that show how the processed text would look before and after
> expansion to 2cm height. A change to "Preceding text" and "Following text"
> would avert this mistake.

Indeed, done.

> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> A small anomaly. Consider
>
>     .de .
>     .tm Hi
>     ,..
>     ..
>
> The second .. emits "Hi". This fragment also emits "Hi":
>
>     .de end end
>     .tm Hi
>     .end
>
> But this (with macro . not previously defined)
> does not:
>
>     .de . .
>     .tm Hi
>     ..

This is very interesting!  I did not add it to the page though.  I don't
think it would be very helpful in this particular example of reflowing
text to know that there are anomalies in end macros.

> Doug

Regards,

Thomas