groff crash

[luke]

GNU troff version 1.16
Linux nevin.research.canon.com.au 2.2.16-22enterprise #1 SMP Tue Aug 22 
16:29:32 EDT 2000 i686 unknown

This is a RedHat 7.0 system, on an Intel Pentium III.

I don't know what compiler was used to compile groff - Red Hat compiled
it.

Under RedHat 7.0, using groff v 1.16, the following file crashes groff
lile so:

: [nevin] .../doc; groff -man -Thtml xxx > xxx.html
grops:/tmp/groff-troff-00FGk6:57: font `S' does not contain ascii character `\'
grops: Failed assertion at line 349, file `font.cc'.
: [nevin] .../doc; ls -l core
-rw-------    1 luke     project    225280 Feb 16 10:10 core
: [nevin] .../doc; date
Fri Feb 16 10:10:25 EST 2001

The file "xxx" is attached.

It is the output from a pic command, for the man macros, with 99% of
the document removed to leave just the part that causes the crash.

I have also fetched a copy of groff 1.16.1 to compile under Red Hat 6.2.
I have heard stories that the gcc version supplied with RH7 is less
than ideal.

No:  I just compiled and installed it from a RedHat 6.2 system:

: [paolo] .../opt; gcc -v
Reading specs from /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/egcs-2.91.66/specs
gcc version egcs-2.91.66 19990314/Linux (egcs-1.1.2 release)

and got the same effective result on the RedHat 7.0 system:

: [nevin] .../doc; groff -man -Thtml xxx > xxx.html
grops:/tmp/groff-troff-OlFl0W:57: font `S' does not contain ascii character `\'
grops: Failed assertion at line 349, file `font.cc'.
"grops /tmp/groff-troff-OlFl0W > /tmp/groff-ps-5gXGaQ" returned status 34304
Conversion to image returned status 256
: [nevin] .../doc; groff -v
GNU troff version 1.16.1

PS: I have no idea why it's complaining about a font `S' - I'm only
using Times and Courier, normal bold and italic (at most).

PPS: I also ran the new groff (1.16.1) on RedHat 6.2.  It worked fine.
Looks like a weird RH7 error.  I've also submitted a bug report to them
- it's number 27909.


luke

xxx
Description: Text document