[bug #62471] [tbl] draws horizontal lines that are too long by 1n in nroff mode

[G. Branden Robinson]

Update of bug #62471 (project groff):

                Category: Device - others/general => Preprocessor tbl       
                  Status:             In Progress => Postponed              
                 Summary: [grotty] draws horizontal lines that are too long by
1n => [tbl] draws horizontal lines that are too long by 1n in nroff mode

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Follow-up Comment #3:

This is going to require a fairly intrusive change to tbl.

Right now "total separation" is computed at the time tbl runs.

https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/tree/src/preproc/tbl/table.cpp#n2228

This means that the amount of horizontal space not allocated to table entries
is invariant with respect to nroff/troff mode.

But that's a problem because vertical rules are nearly zero-width in troff
mode but take up an entire character cell in nroff mode.
Further, the number of vertical rules is highly variable; there could be 0, 1,
2 (a common case with boxed tables), or many.

And tbl doesn't know which mode the table will be formatted in.

So the computation of total separation is going to have to be deferred to
formatting time.  I expect more registers will have to be introduced.

I despair of resolving this before 1.23.0 is released; postponing.


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