Re: [Groff] A trap with 'tbl'!

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Ted,

> Heinz-Jürgen Oertel wrote:
> > As a work around in such cases, we define the number register in the
> > first row.

This works, but I could imagine a case where the width of the text
matters and the preprocessor(s) are causing the register to increment
more than once per occurrence, e.g. 1 through 12 would result from Ted's
six rows.  The width of the "12" would then upset things compared to the
width of the "6" that will appear in the final text after the reset of
lmno to 0.

In these cases I've used a simple, often one-off, preprocessor, e.g.
awk or perl, that will replace, e.g. "##", with an incrementing number.
Then tbl or what have you sees a "6".

> Thank you, Derio and Heinz. You are both correct. In fact I had made a
> mistake last night (it was getting late, and my caffeinaemia levels
> were low), and I did not capture all of the output of 'pic' in that
> test example, but only the first part (see below). (I had left off
> thre ".TE" in copying the code into 'pic'.
>
> In fact, 'pic' goes through the table twice, generating output in two
> parts.

Do you mean tbl in all the places you say pic, including the original
email?  :-)

Cheers, Ralph.