[groff] 25/25: INSTALL.extra: Update discussion of dependencies.

[G. Branden Robinson]

gbranden pushed a commit to branch master
in repository groff.

commit aa16fc0fe503e462617b4db2da1e7638bcac77c6
Author: G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>
AuthorDate: Wed Mar 2 03:22:40 2022 +1100

    INSTALL.extra: Update discussion of dependencies.
    
    * stdbool.h is a C99 feature, so call out C99 as a requirement.  gnulib
      might enable us to build even on C89/C90 systems, though.
    * Record the release date for our Perl dependency, long since
      end-of-lifed even by ActiveState.
    * Update discussion of our Texinfo manual since we no longer have a hard
      build-time dependency on 'makeinfo'.
    * Tweak wording in uchardet and paper size discussions, including a
      Kemper notectomy and Kernighan ditroffectomy.
---
 INSTALL.extra | 59 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------------------------
 1 file changed, 35 insertions(+), 24 deletions(-)

diff --git a/INSTALL.extra b/INSTALL.extra
index ac662c08..d65294e6 100644
--- a/INSTALL.extra
+++ b/INSTALL.extra
@@ -79,23 +79,28 @@ MS-Windows, see the file README.MinGW.
 Dependencies
 ============
 
-groff is written in ISO C++98, so you need a C++ compiler capable of
-handling this standardized version of the language.  The C++ source
-files use a suffix of '.cpp'; your C++ compiler must be able to
+groff is predominantly written in ISO C++98, so you need a C++ compiler
+capable of handling this standardized version of the language.  The C++
+source files use a suffix of '.cpp'; your C++ compiler must be able to
 handle this.  A C/C++ preprocessor that conforms to ISO C90 is also
 required.  If you don't already have a C++ compiler, we suggest GCC 9.4
 or later.  To override the configure script's choice of C++ compiler,
 you can set the CXX environment variable to the name of its executable.
 
+A few components of groff are written in ISO C99.  Features later made
+optional by ISO C11 (the 'complex' primitive data type and
+variable-length arrays) are not used.
+
 Several programs distributed with GNU roff are written in the Perl
-language.  Version 5.6.1 or later is required.
+language.  Version 5.6.1 (1 April 2001) or later is required.
 
-In order to build the documentation, you need 'makeinfo' from the
-'texinfo' package; in fact 'configure' will fail if this program is
-not found unless you pass the option '--with-doc=no'.
+groff's Texinfo manual is distributed in source, GNU info, HTML, and
+plain text formats.  To regenerate the latter formats (if you alter the
+source, for example), or to produce DVI or PDF versions, see section
+"Evaluation" below.
 
 The 'uchardet' library is an optional dependency of the 'preconv'
-program: if this library is found by 'configure' it will be
+program: if this library is found by 'configure', it will be
 automatically used by 'preconv'.  In order to discover the presence of
 the 'uchardet' library, you will also need to have the 'pkg-config'
 program installed on your system, and the library's C header files will
@@ -106,16 +111,16 @@ can mean installing uchardet's '-dev' or '-devel' package.
 Miscellaneous
 =============
 
-If you want A4 or letter paper format and the configure script produces
-an incorrect guess, say
+If you want A4 or U.S. letter paper format and the configure script
+produces an incorrect guess, say
 
   PAGE=xxx ./configure
 
-where `xxx' should be either `A4' or `letter'.  Note that this only
-affects the paper selection of some device drivers like grops (which
-can be still overridden on the command line).  For compatibility with
-ditroff, the default page length in gtroff is always 11 inches.  The
-page length can be changed with the `pl' request.
+where `xxx' should be either `A4' or `letter'.  This affects only the
+paper selection of some groff output drivers, like grops (which can
+still be overridden on the command line).  For compatibility with AT&T
+troff, GNU troff's default page length is always 11 inches.  The page
+length can be changed with the `pl' request.
 
 
 Evaluation
@@ -136,24 +141,30 @@ displays the groff(1) man page with the 'less' pager.  
(You might prefer
 either the '-Tlatin1' or '-Tutf8' option to '-Tascii' depending on the
 character set you're using.)
 
-The groff Texinfo manual can be previewed as an info document.
+The groff Texinfo manual can be viewed in several formats.  Versions
+corresponding to the source document 'doc/groff.texi' are supplied with
+the source distribution archive.  You can browse it in GNU info format.
 
-  info ./doc/groff.info
+  info doc/groff.info
 
-It can be viewed as text as well (albeit text encoded in ISO Latin-1).
+It can be viewed as text encoded in ISO Latin-1 as well.
 
   iconv -f latin1 -t utf8 doc/groff.txt | less # for UTF-8 users
   less doc/groff.txt # for Latin-1 users
 
-To get a DVI, PDF, or HTML version of the groff texinfo manual, say
-'make groff.dvi', 'make groff.pdf', or 'make groff.html', respectively,
-in the 'doc' subdirectory (after configuring the groff package).
-Texinfo version 5.0 or later is a prerequisite for generation of these
-formats.  Here are some ways you might view the documents produced.
+An HTML rendering is also available.
+
+  lynx doc/groff.html
+
+Texinfo version 5.0 or later is a prerequisite for regeneration of
+groff's Texinfo manual if you make changes.  If you also have a working
+TeX installation, you can furthermore render it in DVI or PDF.  Say
+'make doc/groff.dvi' or 'make doc/groff.pdf', respectively, in your
+build directory after configuring the groff package.  Here are some ways
+you might view the formats produced.  Do so from your build directory.
 
   xdvi doc/groff.dvi
   evince doc/groff.pdf
-  lynx doc/groff.html
 
 
 In Case of Trouble