Hi, SGT. Garcia wrote on Mon, Mar 02, 2015 at 07:32:18PM -0500: > On Mar 03 00:40 +0100, Ingo Schwarze wrote:
>> A roff document can read from the number register (for example >> using the \n espace sequence) but cannot change the value of >> the register (for example, assigning to it with the .nr request >> won't work). > i guess i'm looking for a glossary. http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/manual/html_node/Concept-Index.html is probably as close to a glossary as it gets. The Heirloom roff manual http://n-t-roff.github.io/heirloom/doctools/troff.pdf is slightly shorter than the groff manual and may consequently be somewhat easier to skim through to get a first impression of the most important terms, but it doesn't include a glossary either. > for example, what's a request? A request is a command that is built into the the roff language, somewhat similar to a reserved word in a programming language, except that it can only occur after a leading dot or apostrophe at the beginning of an input line. > how is it different from a macro? A macro is a user-defined command, analoguous to a user-defined function in a procedural programming language. > and why would one want to read the number register. That depends on which register; reading and manipulating registers is most often useful when defining your own macros. Yours, Ingo
