URL: <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?66096>
Summary: Document behavior of multiple .hw calls
Group: GNU roff
Submitter: barx
Submitted: Thu 15 Aug 2024 09:29:54 PM CDT
Category: Core
Severity: 2 - Minor
Item Group: Documentation
Status: None
Privacy: Public
Assigned to: None
Open/Closed: Open
Discussion Lock: Any
Planned Release: None
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Follow-up Comments:
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Date: Thu 15 Aug 2024 09:29:54 PM CDT By: Dave <barx>
One of the changes
[http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/commit/?id=d15c86d95 commit
d15c86d95] made to the documentation of the .hw request was:
* Drop observation that the request can be used more than once; nearly
all can (cf. `ex`, `ab`).
I agree this observation, on its own, was of little import.
However, .hw is different from most roff requests in that it updates an
internal database. For most requests, the effect of using them more than once
is either documented or obvious. But a user might reasonably wonder whether
multiple uses of .hw overwrite or append to its database.
I had always read "this request can be used more than once" as indicating the
latter, even though the actual wording does not explicitly say this. But the
latter is the case, as this example illustrates:
.de aa
supercilious orangutan
.sp
..
.ll 1n
.aa \" default hyphenation of both words
.hw sup-erc-ili-ous
.aa \" custom hyphenation of first word
.hw ora-ngu-tan
.aa \" custom hyphenation of second--and first?--word
So the documentation should point this out.
(CSTR#54 also did not specify this, although I presume it is true of AT&T
troff as well. The above example's post-.hw output is the same in Heirloom
troff as in groff, though they break both words differently by default.)
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