[Top][All Lists]
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: [Groff] nop request
From: |
Steve Izma |
Subject: |
Re: [Groff] nop request |
Date: |
Tue, 5 Sep 2000 12:31:45 -0500 |
> > The .nop is meant as syntactical sugar only. I believe that code
> > like
> >
> > .if a \{\
> > . if b \{\
> > . nop Hallo!
> > . \}
> > .\}
> >
> > is easier to read than
> >
> > .if a \{\
> > . if b \{\
> > Hallo!
> > . \}
> > .\}
>
> I prefer to have proper indentation.
> Additionally, `.nop' (or whatever name it will finally get) is a
> safeguard against spurious whitespace at the beginning of the line.
> ....
> It's a philosophical question, I think. Nobody is forced to use it,
> but I believe there are a lot of groff users who will like that.
> Werner
I completely agree with this. I find the structured indentation much easier to
deal
with (I use python a lot).
I think the .nop request is essentially parallel to the print command in many
other
scripting languages. It's interesting that troff/gtroff has no ".print"
command, as
if it would seem redundant relative to the overall purpose of the program; but
in
this case I think it might be appropriate because we would only use such a
command
to actually output text strings. Alternatively, I like the idea of ".text" or
".output"
> PS: Another `syntactical sugar' idea. I like to write macros this
> way:
> .eo
> .\" The function `xxx'
> .de xxx
> .do-something \$1 \$2 \$3
> ..
> .ec
> I strongly believe that you get better code to understand if you can
> avoid the doubling of the backslash. The only minor thing is that, at
> top level, `.\"' will then be counted as a macro called `\"' instead
> of a comment. A similar problem exists with `\#'.
> My idea is to introduce a `.comment' request to have an equivalent to
> the comment escape `\#' -- incidentally, this is exactly your idea of
> `.nop' :-) I think that `.nop' isn't a good name for that purpose, but
> `.comment' isn't either since it is too long. What do you think about
> using `."'?
This seems reasonable to me as well.
> Related to this: What about a mechanism to make all escapes available
> as a request? Something like
> .er w'...' => \w'...'
> .er A'...' => \A'...'
> `er' stands for `escape request'.
How would you get the values from the escape function? It would be even more
programmatically useful to have a return request so that:
.de test
.ie '\\$1'1' .return one
.el \{.ie '\\$1'2' .return two
.el .return three
.\}
..
.de something
.ds page \\*[test] \\n%
..
or something like this (I can't quickly think of example from one of the many
instances I've wanted this).
--
Steve Izma, (519) 884-0710 ext. 6125
Wilfrid Laurier University Press FAX: (519) 725-1399
Waterloo, Ont., Canada N2L 3C5 address@hidden
- Re: [Groff] nop request, (continued)
RE: [Groff] nop request, Ted Harding, 2000/09/04
Re: [Groff] nop request,
Steve Izma <=
- Re: [Groff] nop request, Werner LEMBERG, 2000/09/09
- Re: [Groff] nop request, Ralph Corderoy, 2000/09/12
- Re: [Groff] nop request, Werner LEMBERG, 2000/09/12
- Re: [Groff] nop request, Ralph Corderoy, 2000/09/15
- Re: [Groff] nop request, Werner LEMBERG, 2000/09/18
- Re: [Groff] nop request, Ralph Corderoy, 2000/09/18
- Re: [Groff] nop request, Werner LEMBERG, 2000/09/18
- Re: [Groff] nop request, Ralph Corderoy, 2000/09/20
- Re: [Groff] nop request, Werner LEMBERG, 2000/09/21
- Re: [Groff] nop request, Ralph Corderoy, 2000/09/21