Hi Branden, On 2026-02-21 G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> Hi Morten, > > I agree that there is sometimes an inconsistency here; sometimes it's > real, sometimes it's only apparent, and sometimes it's a deliberate fib > for ergonomic reasons. But it is a very glaring inconsistency - all macro definitions in groff_ms, groff_mom, groff_mdoc, groff_man and groff (requests) employ the leading dot whereas groff_mm, groff_me and groff_www do not. Manual pages are documentation, obviously and the end user reading those usually have no interest in or concept whatsoever of the otherwise extremely erudite explanation you give for retaining that inconsistency. > _However_, this same convention would be invalid and/or ineffectual for, > say, groff_mdoc(7), which implements its own macro processing system on > top of *roff's, and you commonly encounter the Black Speech of Mordor. > > .It Li ".Op Fl I Ns Ar directory" Yes, but you just type 'n' (less) to jump to the next match [...] > It is then important for us to have our wits about us and not confuse > macro names with macro call syntax. But then the manual pages that do use macro call syntax where, according to you, they should have used macro names should be changed. You have to agree with that? > For the mundane purpose of locating macro definitions in a man page, > I'll tell you what I do. Since I'm usually in the pager, I simply do a > regex search including word boundary operators. > > For example, I recently had reason to look up mm(7)'s `LB` macro.[5] > > When consulting the groff_mm(7) man page, here's what I typed. > > /\<LB\> Yes, that is a possibility. However, if I use word boundaries, it would match only macros that are written without the leading dot and then we're back to square one: In groff_mm I would get the matches I want, in groff_ms not. Remember I call the manual page with the search expression from a function, so it must work with a syntax I have decided. Having to type in the expression afterwards in the pager at least partially defeats the purpose of convenience. > > ...and then "n", until I found what I wanted. It came up on the second > match. > >> I am willing to do the work, in that case. > > I hope the foregoing explains why I am not convinced that this is > something we should do on a blanket basis. It does, although I think that you contradict yourself as I have indicated above. Regards, Morten
