Re: [Groff] Choosing a portability target

[Werner LEMBERG]

> especially since b) could have the effect that many HP-UX manual
> pages will not render correctly anymore because the groff -man
> macros lack the HP-UX specific .CI, .IC, etc.  macros which Clarke
> has mentioned.

See my other mail how groff handles this gracefully.

> I did not try this myself, but it seems to me that you can currently
> configure HP-UX man to either render the groff manual pages or the
> system manual pages but not both.

If groff is installed on such a system, the administrator just has to
replace the call to `troff' in the `man' program with a call to gtroff
and friends.  Then both the HP-UX and groff manual pages will be
displayed fine.

> Also note that the HP-UX -man macros use legacy syntax (.deTH)

This doesn't matter.  groff's man macros use the `.de1' request which
automatically enables `groff mode' (.cp 0) while defining and
executing the macros in an encapsulated way.  As a result, they work
fine in compatibility mode.

> and thus would not work in combination with manual pages that use
> long names as well even if groff used them instead of its own -man
> macros.

A man page by default has to be defined in `traditional mode' (.cp 1).
If groff extensions are used it should call

  .do nr _C \n[.C]
  .cp 0

  ... man page ...

  .cp \n[.C]

[Another thing to mention in the forthcoming man writer's guide.]

I think that some man pages within the groff package fail to do that
due to sloppiness on my side -- any volunteer to check?


    Werner