[bug #55060] me: behavior of .ll does not match documentation

[Dave]

Follow-up Comment #2, bug #55060 (project groff):

> There is a translation error in the manual ("meref.me").

I don't know what this means.  I'm reading meref.me in its original language,
English.  I have no evidence it has ever been translated out of and then back
into English.  Do you mean "transcription error"?  If so, from what source was
the passage in question transcribed, and what is the error that was
introduced?

> Get the documentation for troff, "Troff User's Manual", on paper.

I have this document in PDF form.  What would a paper version reveal that I
can't see on-screen?

It's also not clear what this manual has to do with the current bug report:
the manual documents raw troff, and the bug I'm reporting concerns a macro
package.  Can you be more specific about what you think I should be looking at
in this manual?

> How does the macro ".ll" influence the line length
> in a new environment (it is issued outside it)?

It doesn't, which is what this bug is reporting.  But if you mean how _could_
it, that's an interesting question that has been discussed on the mailing
list, in the post I linked to directly below, and in other posts linked to
from there.  Please see the email threads for a fuller answer, but briefly,
note that (a) meref.me was originally written when only three environments
were available in troff, and this part of meref.me is unchanged since at least
1988; (b) if we decide to change the code to match the documentation, this
would almost certainly entail having -me define its own .ev macro (to replace
the low-level groff request) that sets line length appropriately upon
environment creation.

    _______________________________________________________

Reply to this item at:

  <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?55060>

_______________________________________________
  Message sent via Savannah
  https://savannah.gnu.org/