On 01-Oct-06 Clarke Echols wrote: > > ABSOLUTELY NO LINES, other than genuine troff/groff comment lines > should appear in a man page file before the .TH line. You do *not* > want troff/groff interpreting *anything* before it encounters the > .TH macro call because .TH sets up page boundaries, end-of-page > traps, and a bunch of other stuff that you want fully established > and settled before you start interpreting text. This has been the > case for decades.
There is a (typically cryptic) warning about this way back in the original documentation. E.g. CSTR 54 "Troff User's Manual" (Ossanna and Kernighan) Section 3, Page Control: "... A pseudo-page transition onto the first page occurs either when the first break occurs or when the first non-diverted text processing occurs." This is in the context of a discussion of traps, going on to say "Arrangements for a trap to occur at the top of the first page must be completed before this transition." Nevertheless, it is a general warning, since a "transition onto the first page" will automatically set up the default page length, page number, page offset, line length, baseline spacing and line spacing. And this, as Clarke emphasises, may not be what you want! Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 02-Oct-06 Time: 11:10:38 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Groff mailing list Groff@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/groff
