Re: Register for text width to be used with \l'..'?

[Oliver Corff]

Hi Branden,

for table environments, that works, thank you!

Again the problem of search terms... OF COURSE line length -> LL is what
I searched for, alas! I thought in terms of TeX terminology: \textwidth
which would lead nowhere.

\n[LL] produces 468000. I tried \l'\n[LL]/10000' but get an "error:
numeric overflow" message.

Taking advantage that a register ll is undefined in ms I tried then:

.nr ll \n[LL]/10000
\l'\n[ll]'

That basically does the trick but unfortunately 468000/10000 yields 46,
not 46.8 in groff (due to groff performing truncating division as
mentioned in the documentation).

How can I tweak the arithmetic operation to set the correct value of
46.8? Or can I bypass the whole truncating division issue by a smart
selection of scaling units?

Thank you for your insight,

Oliver.


On 08/11/2024 16:58, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> Hi Oliver,
>
> At 2024-11-08T16:26:28+0100, Oliver Corff wrote:
> > if I want to draw a line spanning my whole text block using \l'nn', I
> > usually do it the quick and dirty way and use a number which produces
> > a visual fit, e.g. for an A4 page with default margin settings in ms I
> > say \l'46' (which is visibly a tiny bit too short but ok for my
> > current purpose).
> >
> > Is there a way to feed the text width to \l directly? I studied the
> > list of predefined registers but there does not seem to be one.
> Something like this?
>
> $ nroff -t -ms ATTIC/hrule-in-text-block.ms|cat -s
>
> This is an ms document.
>
> This      is
> a table   ...with  a  text block
>            in it.  Let’s  see  if
>            we can draw a horizon‐
>            tal  rule  inside  the
>            text block.
>            ______________________
>            Did that work?
>
> If so, just use the `.l` register.
>
> groff(7):
>
> Registers
> ...
>     Read‐only registers
>       Predefined registers whose identifiers start with a dot are read‐
>       only.  Many are Boolean‐valued.  Some are string‐valued, meaning
>       that they interpolate text.  A register name (without the dot) is
>       often associated with a request of the same name; exceptions are
>       noted.
> ...
>       \n[.l]         Line length; see .ll.
>
> $ cat ATTIC/hrule-in-text-block.ms
> .LP
> This is an
> .I ms
> document.
> .LP
> .TS
> tab(@);
> L L.
> This@is
> a table@T{
> \&.\|.\|.\|with a text block in it.
> Let's see if we can draw a horizontal rule
> inside the text block.
> .br
> \l'\n[.l]u'
> .br
> Did that work?
> T}
> .TE
>
> Regards,
> Branden

--
Dr. Oliver Corff
mailto:oliver.corff@email.de