latest groff documentation is incompatible with latest GNU texinfo

[Paul Eggert]

GROFF VERSION:
1.19

MACHINE:
Sun Netra T1 200

OS:
SunOS 5.9

COMPILER:
g++ (GCC) 3.3.3
makeinfo (GNU texinfo) 4.7

INPUT FILES:
none

COMMAND LINE:
wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/groff/groff-1.19.tar.gz
gunzip <groff-1.19.tar.gz | tar xf -
cd groff-1.19/doc
makeinfo groff.texinfo

DESCRIPTION OF INCORRECT BEHAVIOUR:

The problem is that the latest version of groff has a texinfo
file that is rejected by the latest version of GNU texinfo.
Here's the output of the above commands:

groff.texinfo:846: Multiline command @group used improperly.
groff.texinfo:852: Unmatched address@hidden'.
groff.texinfo:852: Unmatched address@hidden'.
groff.texinfo:856: Multiline command @group used improperly.
groff.texinfo:861: Unmatched address@hidden'.
groff.texinfo:861: Unmatched address@hidden'.
groff.texinfo:1069: Multiline command @group used improperly.
groff.texinfo:1071: address@hidden' expected `table', but saw `group'.
groff.texinfo:1071: address@hidden' expected `table', but saw `example'.
...
Too many errors!  Gave up.

There's a similar problem for the latest CVS version of groff.texinfo
<http://www.ffii.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/groff/doc/groff.texinfo>.

SUGGESTED FIX [optional]:
My guess is that texinfo recently tightened up its rules for what's
allowed in a macro, so groff needs to define its macros more
carefully.  This will be a bit painful; I don't know of an easy
workaround for this problem.  The most straightforward solution is for
groff to not define those macros, and to write out the text explicitly
for each macro call.

Possibly this is a texinfo bug, too, so I'll CC: this to bug-texinfo.