[bug #63581] "nroff -mom sample_docs.mom" causes infinite loop

[Dave]

Follow-up Comment #19, bug #63581 (project groff):

[comment #17 comment #17:]
> I think there is a possible (3):  When groff encounters an
> infinite loop type situation it breaks the loop and returns an
> error exit code to the user.

Groff will sometimes emit "fatal error: input stack limit exceeded (probable
infinite loop)" (see, e.g.,
http://lists.gnu.org/r/groff/2022-11/msg00137.html).  But it's also trivial to
create an infinite loop that groff will never detect:

echo '.while 1 .nr a 1' | groff

And you're right that in the general case, the situation is not detectable.

But you may be in luck: it looks like Deri has donned the RCA Man cape, and
maybe the condition causing this lockup will turn out to be simple to fix.

> In short yes - yes, that might work - mostly because that
> particular option indicates when it hyphenates words (using a
> <hy>) - the other options I'd seen that printed to the
> terminal didn't - they just broke the word across lines.

Yes, I've often found that aspect of -a output useful.

But also, in the final analysis, any algorithmic count will be an
approximation.  A human reader can recognize "doctor-patient relationship" as
three words but "pre-industrial civilization" as two, but try teaching an
algorithm that distinction without bringing AI into it.  Hyphens are sometimes
word dividers and sometimes not.

> I thought I had cracked it with '-Z -T utf8', but not so...

Ah, earlier I missed that you were using -Z rather than the postprocessed
output, so my trying to point the finger at grotty was misplaced.


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