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[bug #66038] [troff] want "invalid line length" diagnostic to quote user


From: G. Branden Robinson
Subject: [bug #66038] [troff] want "invalid line length" diagnostic to quote user input
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2024 02:30:09 -0400 (EDT)

Follow-up Comment #2, bug #66038 (group groff):

I did not note in comment #1, but probably should have, that I belabored the
term "numerical expression" because while the easiest thing to think about it
is likely input such as the following...


.ll 78n
.pl 11i


These really are numeric _expressions_ and can be as complex as _groff_
arithmetic syntax allows, which is pretty darned complex, complete with
Boolean "and" and "or" operators, and bizarre stuff unfamiliar to C
programmers like the implicit scaling operator ';' and the boundary-relative
motion operator '|', which works everywhere, even where it makes no sense.


$ nroff <<EOF
.nr a |1i
.tm I have \na Snickers bars!
EOF
I have 240 Snickers bars!


Even if we were able to scan ahead in the input to the end of a numeric
expression and gather it for the diagnostic, it might not be particularly
helpful thing to spit back in the user's face.  At least this way they know
what the computed result was.


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