Re: [Groff] refer question

[Wartan Hachaturow]

On Apr 1, 2005 8:22 AM, Peter Schaffter <address@hidden> wrote:

> I'm wondering if anyone knows a way around this, short of changing
> refer.cpp's
> 
>     string join_authors_exactly_two = " and ";
> 
> assertion to
> 
>     string join_authors_exactly_two = ", and ";
> 
> I'd prefer to state without equivocation in the mom documentation
> that mom produces MLA-conformant bibliographic references.  I can't
> do that if the comma is missing, and I do not want to suggest to
> mom users that they patch and recompile refer.  A lot of mom users
> are newbies to groff and GNU software; recompiling could well be
> perceived as a major stumbling block.

Mm. I think the Right Way to do it is to make it somehow configurable
from the outside,
by patching and sending the patch to upstream. The problem here is not
only with comma --
you know, I write in Russian, and having an "and" in a reference
doesn't help much, if it's a
Russian reference ;)
Probably, until the patch would be merged upstream, it could be placed
somewhere near mom -- those that can patch, will patch, and others
will have to live with "no-comma and" for some time (not really a
problem for a short run, I think).
One patch idea (the simpliest) might be the use of gettext -- but
then, it won't be possible to change
string on-the-fly that easily, though -- one would have to patch and
recompile .po.
 
> .REF_TO_FOOTNOTES and .REF_TO_ENDNOTES to determine where the
> references go.

Sounds mom-way :)

-- 
Regards, Wartan.