Re: -man fails to use ANSI commands

[Anton Shepelev]

Anton Shepelev wrote to G. Branden Robinson:

> > Check your environment for variables named "GROFF_SGR"
> > (a Debianism) and "GROFF_NO_SGR".  Unset them both and
> > try "groff -man -Tutf8" again.
>
> `export | grep -i sgr' finds nothing, unfortunately.
> Where else can I look for the reason of -man treating my
> virtual terminal as a printer?

I forgot whether I reported my solution, and if I did, I do
not see my answer here, so here it is for the record.  The
culprit is:

   /usr/share/groff/site-tmac/man.local

which has the following:

   .  \" Debian: Disable the use of SGR (ANSI colour) escape sequences by
   .  \" grotty.
   .  if '\V[GROFF_SGR]'' \
   .    output x X tty: sgr 0

This means that one must /set/ rather than unset GROFF_SGR
to restore the normal nroff behavior.  See also:

   <https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=750202>