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PROBLEMS
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Copyright 1989-2023 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
notice and this notice are preserved.
This file describes various problems that have been encountered in
compiling, installing and running groff. Suggestions for additions or
other improvements to this file are welcome.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Problems are organized into categories underscored with equals signs.
* General Problems
* Printing and Display Problems
* Platform-Dependent Macro Problems
* Compilation Problems
Within each category, items are organized in reverse chronological order
(that is, with the most recent first). groff version numbers
corresponding to their inclusion in this file are included as
guideposts. Entries have been revised for clarity in the years since.
In the following discussions, several references to "/usr/local" are
made. You should read this directory name as the destination directory
you set up with the "--prefix" option to groff's "configure" script.
General Problems
================
[groff 1.23.0]
* gdiffmk doesn't work / its automated test fails.
Some portability issues are known to affect groff's gdiffmk utility.
- gdiffmk does not work with BusyBox diff (which does not implement GNU
diff's "-D" option).
- gdiffmk does not work on FreeBSD due to specifics of that platform's
expr(1) implementation.
gdiffmk uses the expr(1) command to parse its arguments. FreeBSD has
extended the syntax of its expr command in a non-backward compatible
way that it claims better conforms with POSIX's utility syntax
guidelines with respect to option processing: however, POSIX mandates
no options for expr. Other implementations of expr do not support
traditional Unix-style options ('-a', '-b', ...), and perhaps as a
consequence do not follow FreeBSD's interpretation of the guidelines.
You way want to set $EXPR_COMPAT in your shell environment. We hope
to have a workaround for this behavior in a future release.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[groff 1.19.2]
* When viewing man pages, some characters on my UTF-8 terminal emulator
look funny or copy-and-paste wrong. Why?
Some Unicode Basic Latin ("ASCII") input characters are mapped to
non-Basic Latin code points in output for consistency with other output
devices, like PDF. See groff_man_style(7) and groff_char(7) for correct
input conventions and background. If you use the correct groff special
character escape sequences to input them, you will get correct output no
matter what device the input is formatted for.
However, many man pages are written in ignorance of the correct special
characters to obtain the desired glyphs. You can conceal these errors
by adding the following to your site-local man(7) configuration. The
file is called "man.local"; its installation directory depends on how
groff was configured when it was built.
--- start ---
.if '\*[.T]'utf8' \{\
. char ' \[aq]
. char - \-
. char ^ \[ha]
. char ` \[ga]
. char ~ \[ti]
.\}
--- end ---
You may also wish to do the same for "mdoc.local".
In man pages (only), groff maps the minus sign special character '\-' to
the Basic Latin hyphen-minus (U+002D) because man pages require this
glyph and there is no historically established *roff input character,
ordinary or special, for obtaining it when a hyphen and minus sign are
both separately available. To obtain a true minus sign, use the special
character escape sequences '\(mi' or '\[mi]'.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Displaying a man page on a terminal with/without my favorite pager
shows garbage.
groff's terminal output driver, grotty, by default uses ISO 6429/ECMA-48
escape sequences understood by video terminals and their emulators,
rather than the overstriking sequences implemented for typewriter-like
terminals used in the 1960s and 1970s. These escape sequences control
display attributes like bold and italic or oblique typefaces,
underlining, foreground and background color selection, and hyperlink
marking. Terminal emulators that claim compatibility with the DEC
VT100, Linux console driver, or xterm should ignore well-formed escape
sequences that they are not able to support, but some implementations
are buggy.
Furthermore, the popular "less" pager by default assumes that its input
will use overstriking sequences. (This is a surprising choice, as users
of paper terminals had no need for pager programs; to "scroll back", the
operator would simply physically pull up the spool of ejected paper to
read it.) less(1) must instead be given the '-R' option to interpret
escape sequences used by video terminals. Be aware that the
overstriking convention is inescapably ambiguous in some output
sequences. See the grotty(1) man page.
Hyperlink support in terminal emulators is a relatively new initiative
(as of 2022) employing a sequence known as "OSC 8".
https://gist.github.com/egmontkob/eb114294efbcd5adb1944c9f3cb5feda
Due to the feature's young age, the man and mdoc macro packages have a
configuration switch for hyperlink support, and it may be disabled in
your site's man.local and mdoc.local files. Use a command like
printf '\033]8;;man:grotty(1)\033\\grotty(1)\033]8;;\033\\\n' | more
to check your terminal and pager for OSC 8 support. If you see
"grotty(1)" and no additional garbage characters, then you may wish to
edit those site files to remove any lines that disable this feature.
There are a couple of workarounds if you prefer or require overstriking
sequences rather than ISO 6429/ECMA-48 escape sequences.
1. Set the GROFF_NO_SGR environment variable to any value.
2. Pass option '-c' to grotty (that is, add '-P-c' to groff's
command-line options).
The third and probably best option is to use terminal and pager programs
that handle standardized video terminal escape sequences well.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[groff 1.16]
* My document says that the current year is 19100, not 2000.
In groff, as in traditional troff, the yr number register yields the
year minus 1900. Unfortunately, the Bell Labs document "Troff User's
Manual" (Computing Science Technical Report #54) incorrectly claims that
yr is the last two digits of the year. This claim has never been true
AT&T troff nor of groff.
If your text looks like this:
.\" Wrong:
This document was formatted in 19\n(yr.
you can correct it as follows:
This document was formatted in \n[year].
or, if you want to be portable to older troff versions, as follows:
.nr y4 1900+\n(yr
This document was formatted in \n(y4.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[groff 1.09]
* Where can I get grap?
Ted Faber <[email protected]> has written a freely available grap:
http://www.lunabase.org/~faber/Vault/software/grap/
You need version 1.42 or newer.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* The \n(st and \n(sb registers don't seem to work. I thought \w set
them to the height and depth of its argument, but the registers
always seem to be 0.
\n(st and \n(sb don't give the height and depth of the argument to \w,
but the maximum vertical displacements of the text baseline above
(\n(st) and below (\n(sb) its original position. Consider an example
where no text is formatted, but small vertical motions are used.
\w"\v'-1u'\v'3u'"
.tm st=\n(st, sb=\n(sb
st=1, sb=-2
Observe that the sign convention of these registers is opposite that of
relative vertical motion. (This is how Documenter's Workbench troff
and Heirloom Doctools troff work as well.)
The height and depth of formatted text in the \w argument are available
in the \n[rst] and \n[rsb] registers; these are groff extensions.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[groff 1.08]
* I'm having problems formatting man pages produced by the perl
wrapman script.
Some versions of wrapman have a superfluous blank line before the .TH
line. This must be deleted. Then either use groff -C, or apply the
following patch:
*** wrapman.~2~ Sun Jan 19 12:10:24 1992
--- wrapman Tue Aug 10 02:06:41 1993
***************
*** 35,41 ****
$line1 .= <IN> if $line1 =~ /eval/;
$line1 .= <IN> if $line1 =~ /argv/;
$line2 = <IN>;
! next if $line2 eq "'di';\n";
# Pull the old switcheroo.
--- 35,41 ----
$line1 .= <IN> if $line1 =~ /eval/;
$line1 .= <IN> if $line1 =~ /argv/;
$line2 = <IN>;
! next if $line2 eq "'di ';\n" || $line2 eq "'di';\n";
# Pull the old switcheroo.
***************
*** 49,56 ****
print OUT $line1;
print OUT <<EOF;
! 'di';
! 'ig00';
#
# $header
#
--- 49,58 ----
print OUT $line1;
print OUT <<EOF;
! 'di ';
! 'ds 00 \\"';
! 'eo ';
! 'ig 00 ';
#
# $header
#
***************
*** 72,85 ****
# These next few lines are legal in both Perl and nroff.
! $null.00; # finish .ig
'di \\" finish diversion--previous line must be blank
.nr nl 0-1 \\" fake up transition to first page again
.nr % 0 \\" start at page 1
! '; __END__ ##### From here on it's a standard manual page #####
.TH $PROG 1 "$month $mday, 19$year"
- .AT 3
.SH NAME
$prog \\- whatever
.SH SYNOPSIS
--- 74,87 ----
# These next few lines are legal in both Perl and nroff.
! $null.00 ; # finish .ig
! 'ec \\';
'di \\" finish diversion--previous line must be blank
.nr nl 0-1 \\" fake up transition to first page again
.nr % 0 \\" start at page 1
! .\\"'; __END__ ##### From here on it's a standard manual page #####
.TH $PROG 1 "$month $mday, 19$year"
.SH NAME
$prog \\- whatever
.SH SYNOPSIS
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[groff 1.07]
* groff uses up an enormous amount of memory processing large files.
I'm using 386BSD 0.1.
386BSD includes an old version of g++, 1.39, which has a bug that
causes a major memory leak in gtroff. Apply the following fix to g++
and recompile groff:
*** cplus-decl.c.~1~ Mon Aug 6 05:28:59 1990
--- cplus-decl.c Wed Jun 5 08:55:04 1991
***************
*** 7951,7961 ****
/* At the end, call delete if that's what's requested. */
if (TREE_GETS_DELETE (current_class_type))
exprstmt = build_method_call (build1 (NOP_EXPR, TYPE_POINTER_TO (current_class_type), error_mark_node),
get_identifier (OPERATOR_DELETE_FORMAT),
! build_tree_list (NULL_TREE, integer_zero_node),
NULL_TREE, LOOKUP_NORMAL);
else if (TYPE_USES_VIRTUAL_BASECLASSES (current_class_type))
exprstmt = build_x_delete (ptr_type_node, current_class_decl, 0);
else
exprstmt = 0;
--- 7951,7961 ----
/* At the end, call delete if that's what's requested. */
if (TREE_GETS_DELETE (current_class_type))
exprstmt = build_method_call (build1 (NOP_EXPR, TYPE_POINTER_TO (current_class_type), error_mark_node),
get_identifier (OPERATOR_DELETE_FORMAT),
! build_tree_list (NULL_TREE, current_class_decl),
NULL_TREE, LOOKUP_NORMAL);
else if (TYPE_USES_VIRTUAL_BASECLASSES (current_class_type))
exprstmt = build_x_delete (ptr_type_node, current_class_decl, 0);
else
exprstmt = 0;
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[groff 1.06]
* groff can't handle my troff document. It works fine with AT&T troff.
Read section "Implementation differences" in groff_diff(7) (or that of
groff's Texinfo manual), and try groff's '-C' command-line option.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* groff -Tdvi produces dvi files that use fonts at weird
magnifications.
Yes, it does. You may need to compile fonts with Metafont at these
magnifications. The CompileFonts script in the devdvi/generate
directory may help you to do this. (It takes a *long* time on slow
computers.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[groff 1.01]
* gpic output is not centered horizontally; pictures sometimes run off
the bottom of the page.
The macro package you are using is not supplying appropriate
definitions of PS and PE. Give groff a -mpic option.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Groff doesn't use the font names I'm used to.
Use the `ftr' request. See groff_diff(7).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* I get errors using the Unix -ms macros with groff -e -C.
Apply this change. Be careful of copying and pasting it; literal BEL
characters (Control+G) appear in the source--this is an AT&T troff idiom
in output comparisons that is never necessary in GNU troff.
*** /usr/lib/ms/ms.eqn Tue Apr 25 02:14:28 1989
--- ms.eqn Sun Nov 11 10:33:59 1990
***************
*** 22,29 ****
..
. \" EN - end of a displayed equation
.de EN
! .if !\\*(10 .br
.di
.rm EZ
.nr ZN \\n(dn
.if \\n(ZN>0 .if \\n(YE=0 .LP
--- 22,30 ----
..
. \" EN - end of a displayed equation
.de EN
! .if \\n(.k>0 .br
.di
+ .ds 10 \\*(EZ\\
.rm EZ
.nr ZN \\n(dn
.if \\n(ZN>0 .if \\n(YE=0 .LP
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* gpic doesn't accept the syntax `chop N M' for chopping both ends of
a line.
The correct syntax is `chop N chop M'.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* With gpic -t, when I print `line ->; box' using a dvi to ps program,
the arrow head sticks through into the inside of the box.
The dvi to ps program should be modified to set the line cap and line
join parameters to 1 while printing tpic specials.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* gtroff doesn't understand lines like `.ce99' with no space between
the name of the request or macro and the arguments.
gtroff requires a space between macro or request and its arguments
because it allows the use of long names for macros and requests. You
can use the -C option or the `cp' request to put gtroff into a
compatibility mode in which it is not possible to use long names for
macros but in which no space is required between macros and their
arguments. The use of compatibility mode is strongly discouraged.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* GNU troff gives warnings about lines like
.ev \" a comment
(with a tab after ".ev").
A tab character cannot be used as a substitute for a space character,
except immediately after a control character. For example, in AT&T
troff,
.ps \" restore the previous type size
(with a tab after ".ps") does NOT restore the previous type size;
instead it is silently ignored. Since this is very likely unintended,
GNU troff diagnoses it as an error. If you want to align comments, you
can do it like this.
.ev\" \" a comment
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* I don't like the page headers and footers produced by groff -man.
There seem to be many different styles of page header and footer
produced by different versions of the -man macros. You need to put
modified macros from tmac/an.tmac into man.local. More information is
available in groff_man(7).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* While formatting a manual page, groff complains about not being able
to break lines. A line like the following seems to cause this.
.TP \w'label'+2
The groff_man(7) man page says that the default scaling unit for the
`TP` macro is 'n' (ens), and that is how the groff man macros are
implemented. Consequently, the macro argument above is evaluated
equivalently to this expression.
\w'label'n+2n
AT&T troff's man macros don't implement this correctly (probably because
it's hard to do in that troff); instead, they append 'n' to the entire
argument, so that it is evaluated as if it were written as follows.
\w'label'u+2n
The solution is to fix the manual page.
.TP \w'label'u+2
It might be better still to avoid such computations in macro arguments,
however; programs that are not *roff formatters that attempt to
interpret man pages can lack the ability to evaluate numeric
expressions. See section "Portability" of groff_man_style(7).
Printing and Display Problems
=============================
[groff 1.09]
* How can I use groff with an old LaserJet printer that doesn't work
with groff -Tlj4?
You have at least 3 options:
- use groff -Tps with GNU Ghostscript;
- use groff -Tdvi with a TeX .dvi to LaserJet driver;
- use groff with the LaserJet driver in Chris Lewis' psroff package
(available for ftp from:
ftp.uunet.ca:/distrib/chris_lewis/psroff3.0pl17).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Groff seems to generate level 3 Postscript, but my printer is only a
level 1 or 2 PostScript printer.
In fact groff generates only level 2 PostScript (or rather level 1
with some extensions; see grops(1) for more information how to disable
them). The `%!PS-Adobe-3.0' comment at the beginning of PostScript
output generated by groff indicates that the file conforms to version
3.0 of the Adobe Document Structuring Conventions. The output
generated by groff should be printable on any PostScript printer.
Problems with groff output's not printing are most often caused by the
spooling system.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[groff 1.04]
* When I try to run gxditview, I get the error:
Error: Widget viewport has zero width and/or height
This error means you haven't correctly installed the application
defaults file, GXditview.ad; `make install' does this for you
automatically, so either you didn't do `make install', or you haven't
passed a good `--appdefdir=<DIR>' argument to groff's configure
script.
See the X(7) man page for information how and where application
defaults files have to be located. Look for the XAPPLRESDIR and
XUSERFILESEARCHPATH environment variables.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[groff 1.01]
* I'm having problems including PostScript illustrations (EPS) using
the PSPIC macro and/or \X'ps: import ...'.
A PostScript document must meet three requirements in order to be
included with the PSPIC macro: it must comply with the Adobe Document
Structuring Conventions; it must contain a BoundingBox line; it must
be `well-behaved'. The BoundingBox line should be of the form:
%%BoundingBox: llx lly urx ury
where llx, lly, urx, ury are the coordinates of the lower left x,
lower left y, upper right x, upper right y of the bounding box of
marks on the page expressed as integers in the default PostScript
coordinate system (72 units per inch, origin at bottom left corner).
The most convenient program to get the bounding box of a document is
the `ps2epsi' script coming with GhostScript.
If you can't use this program, another useful tactic is to print out
the illustration by itself (you may need to add a `showpage' at the
end), and physically measure the bounding box. For more detail on
these requirements, read the specification of Encapsulated PostScript
format. (This is available from the Adobe file server; send a message
with a body of `help' to [email protected].)
If an EPS file to be included via \X'ps: import' does not start with
`%!PS-Adobe-...', gtroff still includes the file, but grops does not
add any fonts to the generated output file that are listed in the EPS
file, even though the files are listed in the `download' file and are
available in the devps directory.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* I've configured groff for A4 paper, but GNU troff still seems to think
that the length of a page (interpolated by `\n(.p`) is 11 inches.
The "configure" script recognizes a PAGE parameter. Set it like this.
$ ./configure PAGE=A4
If the parameter is not set, the script undertakes a variety of efforts
to figure out the correct default paper format, such as checking an
"/etc/papersize" file. If it determines the paper format through such
inference, the source of information is reported in the Autoconf
"checking default paper format" message.
This paper format populates the device description files for the output
drivers grodvi(1), groplbp(1), grolj4(1), gropdf(1), and grops(1) with a
"papersize" directive. (See groff_font(5).) If this directive is not
present, the formatter and output drivers assume a page length of 11
inches for compatibility with AT&T troff.
In the formatter, the `pl` request changes the page length, but macro
packages often do not support alteration of the paper format within a
document. One might, for instance, want to switch between portrait and
landscape orientations. Macro packages lack a consistent approach to
configuration of parameters dependent on the paper format; some, like
"ms", benefit from a preamble in the document prior to the first macro
call, while others, like "mm", instead require the specification of
registers on the command line to configure page dimensions.
Output drivers for typesetters also recognize command-line options `-p`
to override the default page dimensions and `-l` to use landscape
orientation. The output driver's man page, such as grops(1), may be
helpful.
groff's "-d paper" command-line option is a convenient means of setting
the paper format; see groff_tmac(5). Combine it with appropriate `-P`
options for the output driver, overriding its defaults.
The following command formats for PostScript on A4 paper in landscape
orientation.
$ groff -T ps -d paper=a4l -P -pa4 -P -l -ms foo.ms > foo.ps
See groff(1), section "Paper format".
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* When I print the output of groff -Tps, the output is always shifted
up by about 0.7 inches; I'm using 8.5x11 inch paper.
Make sure that the paper format is "letter". See groff_tmac(5).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* When I try to print the output of groff -Tps, I get no output at all
from the printer, and the log file shows the error
%%[ error: undefined; offendingcommand: BP ]%%
I'm using TranScript spooling software.
This is a bug in the page reversal filter in early versions of
TranScript. Change the `broken' parameter in
/usr/local/lib/groff/font/devps/DESC to 7.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* When I preview groff -Tps output using the Sun OpenWindows 2.0
pageview program, all the pages are displayed on top of each other.
This is a defect in pageview. Change the `broken' parameter in
/usr/local/lib/groff/font/devps/DESC to 2.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* With groff -TX75, -TX100 or -X, I can only view the first page.
The left mouse button brings up a menu that allows you to view other
pages. You can also press <space> and <backspace> to advance and
retreat the current page view, respectively.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* When I print the output of groff -Tdvi, I just get a black dot in
upper left corner.
Some dvi drivers (notably early versions of xtex) do not correctly
handle dvi files that use a resolution different from that used by dvi
files produced by TeX. Try getting a more up to date driver.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* When I preview documents using -TX75 or -TX100, the layout is not
the same as when I print the document with -Tps: the line and page
breaks come in different places.
Use `groff -X -Tps'.
Platform-Dependent Macro Problems
=================================
[groff 1.17]
* groff produces wrapper macros for `ms' and friends which call the
system's original macros. Then, to get groff's ms macro package I
have to use `-mgs' instead `-ms'. Can I avoid this?
Yes. Configure and compile groff as usual, but install it with
make install tmac_wrap=""
Then no wrapper files are produced, and `-ms' uses groff's `ms'
macros.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[groff 1.09]
* On an SGI system, how can I make the man command use groff?
From David Hinds <[email protected]> (some of these steps
are unnecessary if you install with the `g' Makefile variable defined
as empty):
Create a script called `eqn':
> #!/bin/sh
> if [ ${1:-""} = /usr/pub/eqnchar ] ; then shift ; fi
> geqn $*
and a script called `neqn':
> #!/bin/sh
> if [ ${1:-""} = /usr/pub/eqnchar ] ; then shift ; fi
> geqn -Tascii $*
and do:
> ln -s gnroff nroff
and edit the end of the gnroff script to be:
> rest=`echo ${1+"$@"} | sed -e 's+/usr/lib/tmac+/usr/local/lib/groff/tmac+'`
> exec groff -Wall -mtty-char $T $opts $rest
To get PostScript output from `man -t', you also need to create a
`psroff' script similar to `nroff'. Here are the context diffs:
*** /usr/local/bin/nroff Sat Feb 13 15:51:09 1993
--- /usr/local/bin/psroff Sat Feb 13 17:45:46 1993
***************
*** 1,8 ****
#! /bin/sh
! # Emulate nroff with groff.
prog="$0"
! T=-Tascii
opts=
for i
--- 1,8 ----
#! /bin/sh
! # Emulate psroff with groff.
prog="$0"
! T=-Tps
opts=
for i
***************
*** 25,30 ****
--- 25,33 ----
-Tascii|-Tlatin1)
T=$1
;;
+ -t)
+ # ignore -- default is send to stdout
+ ;;
-T*)
# ignore other devices
;;
***************
*** 49,53 ****
rest=`echo ${1+"$@"} | sed -e 's+/usr/lib/tmac+/usr/local/lib/groff/tmac+'`
# This shell script is intended for use with man, so warnings are
# probably not wanted. Also load nroff-style character definitions.
! exec groff -Wall -mtty-char $T $opts $rest
--- 52,56 ----
rest=`echo ${1+"$@"} | sed -e 's+/usr/lib/tmac+/usr/local/lib/groff/tmac+'`
# This shell script is intended for use with man, so warnings are
! # probably not wanted.
! exec groff -Wall $T $opts $rest
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[groff 1.08]
* I'm having problems formatting HP-UX 9.0 man pages with groff -man.
Copy HP's tmac.an into /usr/local/share/groff/site-tmac/an.tmac, and
put `.cp 1' at the beginning.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[groff 1.07]
* I'm having problems formatting Ultrix man pages with groff -man.
The Ultrix man pages use a number of non-standard extensions to the
Unix man macros. [To be fair, SunOS did too, albeit not as many; see
groff_man(7). groff embraced SunOS's extensions early on, but not
Ultrix's. --GBR in 2023] One solution is to use the Ultrix -man macros
with groff. Copy /usr/lib/tmac/tmac.an to
/usr/local/share/groff/site-tmac/an.tmac and apply the following patch
(from Frank Wortner):
*** /usr/local/lib/groff/tmac/tmac.an Wed Sep 9 12:29:28 1992
--- /usr/lib/tmac/tmac.an Fri Jul 24 19:58:19 1992
***************
*** 489,495 ****
. \" make special case of shift out of italic
.de }S
.ds ]F
! .if \\$12 .if !\\$5 .ds ]F \^
.ie !\\$4 .}S \\$2 \\$1 "\\$3\f\\$1\\$4\\*(]F" "\\$5" "\\$6" "\\$7" "\\$8" "\\$9"
.el \\$3
.}f
--- 489,495 ----
. \" make special case of shift out of italic
.de }S
.ds ]F
! .if \\$12 .if !\\$5 .ds ]F\^
.ie !\\$4 .}S \\$2 \\$1 "\\$3\f\\$1\\$4\\*(]F" "\\$5" "\\$6" "\\$7" "\\$8" "\\$9"
.el \\$3
.}f
Another possible solution is to install tmac/man.ultrix as
/usr/local/share/groff/site-tmac/man.local.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[groff 1.01]
* I get lots of errors when I use groff with the AT&T -mm macros.
Use the groff -mm macros.
Compilation Problems
====================
[groff 1.23.0]
* The "initialization_is_quiet" test fails on my NetBSD box.
This is a known problem. We haven't tracked down the cause yet, but
have improved the reporting of the test output in hopes that we can
isolate it in a future release.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* The "check-default-foundry" test fails when I run "make check".
Your Ghostscript installation may have its fonts embedded in the
executable; this can be discerned by searching for the pattern "%rom%"
in its search path.
$ gs -h | grep '%rom%'
The consequence is that gropdf(1) will be unable to embed fonts into PDF
files it generates (apart from groff's "EURO" font) when the default
foundry is used. This is the same outcome as if Ghostscript were not
installed at all. If you install URW fonts (see "INSTALL.extra"), you
will be able to embed them all by using the "U" foundry with gropdf to
overcome this problem.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* I get a lot of warnings about "sprintf" on macOS.
Apple has decided to treat the sprintf() standard C library function as
deprecated even though the C standard itself has not.
https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/714675
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* I get a make(1) failure involving grep and the groff_man.7.man.in file
on Solaris 11.
Solaris make(1) has a bug easily exhibited by the following Makefile.
all:
! false
Use GNU make instead; it may be available in /opt/csw/bin/gmake.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Tests fail when I run "make check" on Solaris 10 or 11.
The test suite expects a POSIX-conforming shell and utilities. Solaris
10 does not offer these in the default $PATH. We try to use features
standardized no later than POSIX Issue 4 (1994). Unfortunately even
that is too recent for some implementations. Solaris 11 has a (mostly)
conforming shell. It may help to ensure that "/usr/xpg6/bin" and
"/usr/xpg4/bin" precede "/usr/bin" in the $PATH when building groff.
For Solaris 10, it is necessary to modify the shell-based test scripts
in place to use a conforming shell. Here is an example.
$ gsed -i -e '1s@#!/bin/sh@#!/usr/xpg4/bin/sh@' \
`find . -name '*.sh' | grep /tests/`
$ PATH=/usr/xpg4/bin:$PATH gmake check
Some test failures remain expected on Solaris 10 and/or 11.
1. FAIL: contrib/hdtbl/examples/test-hdtbl.sh
/usr/bin/tr on Solaris 10 is non-conforming with the POSIX Issue 4
standard. It furthermore issues anonymous diagnostics, saying only
"Bad string".
Install tr from GNU coreutils in the $PATH. Edit line 57 of each of
contrib/hdtbl/examples/fonts_x.in and
contrib/hdtbl/examples/fonts_n.in. Change "tr" to "gtr".
Alternatively, you can use the absolute path to GNU tr's location.
Re-run "gmake check" as above. (Some files will be rebuilt.)
The tr commands in /usr/xpg4/bin and /usr/xpg6/bin also work, but
the documents constructed from the above inputs use groff's `pso`
request, which wraps the standard C library `popen()` function,
which sanitizes $PATH to avoid privilege escalation, thus making it
likely that the non-conforming tr in /usr/bin will be found first.
2. FAIL: src/roff/groff/tests/initialization_is_quiet.sh
FAIL: src/roff/groff/tests/msoquiet_works.sh
FAIL: src/roff/groff/tests/soquiet_works.sh
(The first of these might be SKIPped instead.)
/usr/xpg4/bin/sh is non-conforming with the POSIX Issue 4 standard,
despite its name. Its "unset" builtin is buggy. (The /usr/bin/sh
in Solaris 11 does not have this problem.)
These tests use the "unset" shell builtin command to prevent
environment variables from confounding test results.
POSIX says "[u]nsetting a variable ... that was not previously set
is not considered an error and will not cause the shell to abort."
Nevertheless this builtin returns an error exit status in this
circumstance.
$ /usr/xpg4/bin/sh -c 'unset _NON_EXISTENT_XYZ; echo $?'
1
You may disregard these failures, edit the test scripts to append
"|| true" to the "unset" commands, or change the scripts to use GNU
Bash or some other POSIX-conforming shell as illustrated above.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* I get warnings from afmtodit about names already being mapped.
afmtodit: AGL name 'Delta' already mapped to groff name '*D'; ignoring AGL name 'uni0394'
You can ignore these if they're in the form shown above, where the
ignored AGL name is 'uniXXXX' and 'XXXX' is four hexadecimal digits.
The Adobe Glyph List (AGL) has its own names for glyphs; they are often
different from groff's special character names. The afmtodit program is
constructing a mapping from groff special character names to AGL names;
this can be a one-to-one or many-to-one mapping, but one-to-many will
not work, so afmtodit discards the excessive mappings. The example you
see above is telling you that the groff font description that afmtodit
is writing cannot map the groff special character '*D' to both 'Delta'
and 'uni0394'.
Which, if any, such warnings you see depends on the version of the URW
fonts you are building groff against. See the '--with-urw-fonts-dir'
option to the "configure" script, and the afmtodit(1) and groff_char(7)
man pages for more background.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* I am building from the Git repository, using 'autoreconf' from a GNU
Autoconf release earlier than 2.69, and I get this.
/usr/share/aclocal/gtkglextmm-1.2.m4:225:
warning: underquoted definition of AC_GTKGLEXTMM_SUPPORTS_MULTIHEAD
/usr/share/aclocal/gtkglextmm-1.2.m4:225:
run info '(automake)Extending aclocal'
/usr/share/aclocal/gtkglextmm-1.2.m4:225:
or see http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/automake.html#Extending-aclocal
Ignore this. It doesn't occur in more recent versions of 'autoreconf'.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* I get warnings about special characters in the groff_char(7) man page.
troff:man/groff_char.7:1033: warning: special character '.j' not defined
(...and similar for 'vA', 'bs', '-+', 'coproduct', and '+e'.)
You can ignore these. groff defines a handful of special characters for
which historical PostScript fonts usually did not possess glyphs.
Except for 'bs' (the Bell System logo), we hope to provide fallbacks or
a supplementary PostScript font in groff in the future (as was done for
the Euro glyph).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* I get warnings about the "vasnprintf" function.
lib/vasnprintf.c: In function 'vasnprintf':
lib/vasnprintf.c:5268:27: warning: format not a string literal, argument types not checked [-Wformat-nonliteral]
(and similar)
The groff source tree includes gnulib, the GNU portability library
<https://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib/>. These warnings are about its
source code and that project's responsibility to resolve. We expect a
future release of gnulib to do so.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[groff 1.22.4]
* When compiling on NetBSD, make issues warnings like
Warning: line 28: Unable to locate font(s)