Re: [Groff] Re: Simplifying groff documentation

[Eric S. Raymond]

Gunnar Ritter <address@hidden>:
> Real *roff is hardly the problem since it has supported the
> two-character requests (except .do) for more than thirty years
> now. The issues are with scripts that convert manual pages or
> build indexes for them or whatever. I would say a program that
> claims to read manual pages is broken enough to be irrelevant
> if it cannot at least handle
> 
>   .br .fi .nf .sp .ig .in .ti

Doclifter might fail that test.  It ignores .in and .ti, because
I don't know any way to extract structural information from them.

> Also it must have basic tbl support.

Agreed
   
> Then there are requests that do not hurt so much if they are
> left uninterpreted, e.g.
> 
>   .ps .ss .cs .bd .ft .fp .ad .na .vs .ls .ll .lg
>   .ul .cu .hy .hw

I generally agree, exceopt that inyerpreting .ft in combination with cliche
analysid can reveal structural info.
-- 
                <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/";>Eric S. Raymond</a>