Re: [Groff] line break question

[Tadziu Hoffmann]

> I can only track down this to the step where the `refer' ms-macros
> are inserted (i.e. the `refer' output for my original document). 
> the relevant modified excerpt from the latter is:
[snip]

I think this has to do with the way ref*add-xxx and ref*field
construct the reference entry as a series of "words" separated
by spaces.  I guess there is no provision for having two fields
"stick together" without a space in between, so this has been
*faked* (gasp!) with the following construct:

  .de ref*add-N
  .ref*field N \z( "" ")"
  ..

Now, "\z( xyz" might appear to look like "(xyz" under some
circumstances, but it's a poor substitute and certainly won't
work at the end of a line.

My suggestion: the above sucks badly anyway (italic opening
parenthesis and roman closing parenthesis (!?)), so I would
simply do away with all that fancy stuff and substitute

  .de ref*add-N
  .ref*field N
  ..

which also corresponds more to the style used by journals such
as Nature and Physical Review.

If you absolutely want to prevent a linebreak between two fields
I guess you need to redesign the ref*add and ref*field macros.