file variables and man pages with preprocessors

[Werner LEMBERG]

There is a convention in man pages to mark them whether a preprocessor
has to be used or not.  The first line must resemble

  '\" <string>

where <string> is a combination of letters which identify the used
preprocessor.  For example, `p' and `t' stand for pic and tbl,
respectively:

  '\" tp

However, if a man page starts with such a comment, local file
variables can't be placed into the first line and are no longer
recognized by Emacs.

I thus ask to handle files which start with

  '\"

similar to shell scripts, this is, to take the *second* line for file
variables.

Another reason for this request is the forthcoming release of groff
which contains a preprocessor, preconv, to handle man pages in various
input encodings, and which recognizes Emacs coding tags (within a file
variable at the top of a file).


    Werner