Subject: Re: groff-1.17.2 import imminent
To: Thomas Klausner <wiz@danbala.ifoer.tuwien.ac.at>
From: Luke Mewburn <lukem@netbsd.org>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 10/22/2001 09:10:50
On Fri, Oct 19, 2001 at 11:53:13AM +0200, Thomas Klausner wrote:
> groff-1.17.2 comes with a mdoc-version that is not limited to 9
> arguments for macros anymore, and which is supposed to contain all
> NetBSD mdoc-specialties (so far I didn't find counter-examples).
> I intend to switch from the one we currently use to the one coming
> with groff-1.17.2, since the latter one seems well-maintained.

I trust that you've checked for any NetBSD-specific macros (e.g., Nx)
which aren't in groff-1.17.x's ``mdoc-NG'' and rectified this?


> There are some man page changes to be done before this switch can
> happen: E.g. ".Nm" usage changed in connection with punctuation from
> ``.Nm "" .'' to ``.Nm .''; 1.17.2 is also a bit pickier, and finds
> more errors in man pages -- these will be fixed after the import (I
> intend to follow through with that).

Does groff 1.17.2 permit the older `` .Nm "" . '' to work?
If not, I believe it should be; we shouldn't have to rototill
old man page source (e.g, from a prior release) just to get a
newer groff to DTRT.  This doesn't prevent us from (possibly
slowly) converting -current man pages to use the cleaner
`` .Nm .  '' syntax.


Luke.