Re: [Groff] empty line before .TH in man page produces sometimes an empty page

[Keith MARSHALL]

Clarke Echols wrote, quoting Bernd Warken:
>> Consider the followin short man page:
>>
>> $ cat manpage.1
>> \" comment
>> .TH MANPAGE 1 "2006 Oct 1" "manpage"
>> .SH NAME
>> manpage \- test man page
>>
>> This has a bug: the first line (with the comment) should start
>> with a dot.  For example, the man page bash.1 has this bug.
>>
>> Without the dot, this line produces an empty space in the output.
>> In text or html output, this space is a single empty line, ok.
>>
>> But in ps or dvi output, a whole empty page is created.  I consider
>> this a bug in ps and dvi mode.
>
> ABSOLUTELY NO LINES, other than genuine troff/groff comment lines
> should appear in a man page file before the .TH line.
> [...]
>
> Any line before .TH that is not a comment will create a break in
> no-fill mode, and in fill mode will create a non-empty buffer prior
> to the .TH line, causing unpredictable behavior, depending on
> various environment/status conditions.

In other words, the behaviour Bernd perceives as a bug is *not* a bug,
in the sense of his report -- it is undefined behaviour resulting from
misuse of the man macros.  If you misuse code, in a manner which leads
to undefined behaviour, then *any* outcome is legitimate; just because
that behaviour is different under differing circumstances doesn't make
any one of the observed outcomes any less legitimate than any other.

Yes, there is a bug; it is in the manpage source which places content
before the .TH line.

Regards,
Keith.