Hi Peter, At 2023-02-04T16:09:55-0500, Peter Schaffter wrote: > The reasoning makes sense but now you have to jump through a hoop > when you're using .ab for debugging. I usually debug with the -z > flag. Formerly, > > echo -e ".nr foo 1\n.if r foo .ab\n" | groff -z > > would helpfully spit out "User abort." Now there's no way to know > whether groff exited cleanly or aborted unless you add a string > after .ab. (A minor annoyance, but I thought I should mention it.)
There _is_ a way... :) Something I recommend to all serious Unix users is to put the exit status in the shell prompt. I learned this trick early because too many times when working interactively, by the time I realize I want to know something's exit status, it is too late and $? has been clobbered. Here's an abbreviated form of my Bash prompt. I note that the "($?)" part is thoroughly portable. _All_ POSIX, Bourne-, or Korn-descended shells should support it. PS1='\D{%F} \t \s-\v [\l] {\j} ($?) \u@\h:\w !\!\$ ' Regards, Branden
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