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Article #1228Ditroff question: what does \X do?
From: Anne Chenette
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1989 21:44
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1989 21:44
62 lines
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2408 bytes
I've had a weirdness happen with ditroff/PostScript. A user mistakenly
left out the space when he wanted the '\ ' (backslash-space) escape
sequence; the results were most unexpected. Can anyone explain
what is happening? (I hope news doesn't eat my \ characters!)
The following sequence in a ditroff source file:
\s-1\%CRAY\ Y-MP\s+1, \s-1\%CRAY\X-MP\ EA\s+1, and
\s-1\%CRAY\ X-MP\s+1 systems,
generates the following PostScript code:
3369(CRAY)X
3621(Y-MP)X
11 s
3833(,)X
10 s
> 3880(CRAY)X < Suspicious-looking
> MP EA, and < code here
11 s
4135(-)X
10 s
1890 5418(CRAY)N
2142(X-MP)X
11 s
2379(systems,)X
which causes the following message from PostScript:
Error: undefined; OffendingCommand: MP
Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored
What did I do??? Is \X a ditroff escape sequence? If so, how is it used?
I'd like to include PostScript figures in a ditroff document; can \X
(or anything else) be used to do it? How do I get back to ditroff once
I "escape" to PostScript? Is any of this documented anywhere? By the by,
I'm running SunOs 3.5 with DWB ditroff (version unknown).
I don't have ditroff documentation, other than the ditroff(1) man page;
and my troff bible (J. Ossana, RIP) does not list the escape sequence \X
(backslash-X). Worse yet, I don't know PostScript (mea culpa!)
I would be grateful for any and all information. Please send mail,
if possible; our news feed is flakey.
Thanks in advance,
Anne Chenette
anne@cray.com
or
..!uunet!cray!com
P.S. In case the ditroff output is important, here it is (for the
relevant passage). The ditroff output ends shortly after
this occurs (about 75 lines later).
76C58R58A58Y56 22Y56-27M76Ps11
53,ws10
> 47C58R58A58Ywx X MP EA, and < This also looks suspicious
s11
h81Chy
n104 0
H374
s10
V5418
h1516cC
58R58A58Y56 22X56-27M76Pws11
78s41y47s41t34e44m78s41,
Technical Details
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!uwvax!umn-d-ub!umn-cs!timbuk!anne From: anne@timbuk.cray.com (Anne Chenette) Newsgroups: comp.text Subject: Ditroff question: what does \X do? Summary: Is this message making it to your site? Keywords: PostScript weirdness Message-ID: <5769@timbuk.cray.com> Date: 16 Nov 89 21:44:40 GMT Organization: Cray Research, Inc., Mendota Heights, MN Lines: 62