[bug #64071] [troff] support construction of proper C strings for request arguments destined for the shell or file system

[G. Branden Robinson]

URL:
  <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?64071>

                 Summary: [troff] support construction of proper C strings for
request arguments destined for the shell or file system
                   Group: GNU roff
               Submitter: gbranden
               Submitted: Wed 19 Apr 2023 10:01:11 PM UTC
                Category: Core
                Severity: 3 - Normal
              Item Group: Feature change
                  Status: Postponed
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: gbranden
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
         Planned Release: None


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Follow-up Comments:


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Date: Wed 19 Apr 2023 10:01:11 PM UTC By: G. Branden Robinson <gbranden>
Background, discussing only arguments to the `sy` request.

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2023-04/msg00190.html

I think this will also apply to `pi` and `pso`.

At the same time, we might want to see what our story is with respect to
opening file names with spaces or backslashes in them.  That would affect the
`\O` escape sequence and the `cf`, `fp`, `hpf`, `hpfa`, `lf` (?), `mso`,
`msoquiet`, `nx`, `open`, `opena`,  `psbb`, `so`, `soquiet`, and `trf`
requests.

I expect this will break AT&T troff compatibility.  But maybe not in a way
that any AT&T troff user would notice, since if the behavior of DWB 3.3 troff
is any indication, you simply had no way to express C escape sequences that
are valid in string literals via troff requests.







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