URL: <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?68725>
Summary: [refer] provide a "safer mode," and possibly default
to it
Group: GNU roff
Submitter: None
Submitted: Tue 29 Sep 2026 01:27:51 AM UTC
Category: Preprocessor refer
Severity: 3 - Normal
Item Group: Feature change
Status: None
Privacy: Public
Assigned to: None
Open/Closed: Open
Discussion Lock: Unlocked
Planned Release: None
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Follow-up Comments:
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Date: Tue 29 Sep 2026 01:27:51 AM UTC By: Anonymous
Branden wrote the below in bug #68680. (That ticket is currently private, but
the below proposal does not expose any of the info motivating the ticket's
privacy level.)
----
Adding a `-S` flag to GNU _refer_ might be a good idea. Its meaning? "Ignore
index files." While man pages virtually never (and other *roff documents
rarely) use that preprocessor, there's nothing (apart from huge social
inertia) preventing its increased uptake. I picked that flag name of course
to parallel the existing "safer mode" flag...wait, a matter of fact, maybe we
should adapt to _refer_ and _libbib_ two existing properties of _groff_'s
ecosystem. _Default_ to safer mode (don't read index files), support `-U`
options to _refer_, _lookbib_, and _lkbib_, add `-S` options as well to "lock"
safer mode (a more recent innovation), and have _groff_(1) pass those options
to _refer_ if it runs the latter program in the pipeline it constructs. [...]
It should also be pitched to the discussion list as an informal RFC. I
predict little controversy.
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