🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <763@dtscp1.UUCP> scott@dtscp1.UUCP (Scott Barman) writes:
>In article <22@nx32s.anduk.co.uk> lee@nx32s.UUCP (Liam R. Quin) writes:
>>I prefer "\[...]", (e.g. for things like \\*[array.\\n[index]]).
>The problem with this is with the older versions of troff it will interpret
>the string named "[" then append "array" to it and the number register
>of "[" then "index]]" appended.
Obviously this happens if you use \n{ as well.  
The difference is that \[ is not already wired into troff, and is therefore
useable for extensions; this isn't true for \{.
But if you use the old versions of troff, you are not likely to use the
new extensions.

>Once you do this, you have to sit and
>re-edit many megabytes of documentation already in existance.
Only if it uses \[ in the input (which wouldn't have done anything!),
or if you have used a string or number register called [,
and you don't have a "disable long names" command-line option.
Even then, it is a very, very easy sed-script to turn
	\*[
into
	 \*[[]
everywhere.  Remember that your old documents do not use long names,
because troff didn't have them at your site when you wrote them.
No-one is suggesting that you be forced to discard or edit megabytes of
documentation.

>This is
>not fair to those of us who has [sic] been doing this for a few years!
Doing what?  Sorry, not following you here.

>Didn't Berkeley do something like this for long names?  I think they took
>great pains in keeping the compatibility!
Yes...
>Their method was to use the
>space as the delimeter.
Not that I am aware of.
In article <252@ucbopal.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> (Edward Moy) wrote
(on the 3rd Jul 1985), that they used square brackets, as in \*[string]:

	Strings, number registers and fonts of any length name may be
	called with \*[x..x], \n[x..x] and \f[x..x], respectively.  Special
	characters may also be called with \[x..x].  The format of a number
	register may be accessed with  \g[x..x], and the current input-line
	horizontal position may be recorded in register x..x with
	\k[x..x].  Size changes of any number of digits may be called with
	`s[x..x].

This only happened if you set the EXPANDED environmant variable, or if
you used -x on the command line.

If there was another version of ditroff which used spaces, I don't
know of it (and would like to know more).
But it sounds like it would have been a pain!

>[...] AND IT DOES NOT BREAK ALL
>THE OLD DOCUMENTS!
Neither do \{ \[, \<, \C'...' or any of the other schemes.  Perhaps you
are being a trifle alarmist?  At most these break a very few documents,
and a few macro packages (not, for example, -mm in either case) need
very slight editing.

>PLEASE STOP TRYING TO BREAK OUR *MEGABYTES* OF DOCUMENTATION!!!
No-one is doing this.  You can stop shouting now [0.5 :-)].
If you still need convincing, though, send me some mail!

>*AND* we (read: me,
>the part-time sys admin., full time programmer) do not want to maintain
>N versions of troff!  I did it once and it was not fun or easy!
No-one seems to be about to force you to use GNU troff.  If you prefer
to walk, walk.  We'll take the `plane. [:-) :-) :-)]

lee

-- 
Lee Russell Quin, Unixsys UK Ltd, The Genesis Centre, Birchwood,
Warrington, ENGLAND, WA3 7BH; Tel. +44 925 828181, Fax +44 925 827834
	lee%anduk.uucp@ai.toronto.edu;  {utzoo,uunet}!utai!anduk!lee
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