Re: man: EX/EE nested within nf/fi

[G. Branden Robinson]

Hi Alex,

At 2024-06-11T16:44:14+0200, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> > >   .P
> > >   .B #include <bar.h>
> > >   .P
> > >   .B #define BAR \[dq]bar\[dq]
> > >   .fi
> > 
> > I think the foregoing would be off-putting with family changes in
> > it.  I've also never seen this idiom of setting the preprocessor
> > directives in roman used anywhere else in man pages.
> 
> It's not roman; it's bold.  Did you mean proportional?

Yes, my cerebrum was flatulent.  s/roman/Times/

> Michael liked proportional typeface for everything in the synopsis,
> and so I'm following his tradition.

Yes, I think that's a good idea too.

> I'm only using EX/EE for structures, for alignment reasons.  The
> actual synopsis that I'm formatting is:
> 
> SYNOPSIS
>      #include <linux/fs.h>  /* Definition of PAGE* and PM_* constants */
>      #include <sys/ioctl.h>
> 
>      int ioctl(int pagemap_fd, PAGEMAP_SCAN, struct pm_scan_arg *arg);
> 
>      #include <linux/fs.h>
> 
>      struct pm_scan_arg {
>          __u64  size;
>          __u64  flags;
>          __u64  start;
>          __u64  end;
>          __u64  walk_end;
>          __u64  vec;
>          __u64  vec_len;
>          __u64  max_pages;
>          __u64  category_inverted;
>          __u64  category_mask;
>          __u64  category_anyof_mask;
>          __u64  return_mask;
>      };
> 
>      struct page_region {
>          __u64  start;
>          __u64  end;
>          __u64  categories;
>      };
> 
> where only the structures would be EX/EE.

I see.  It's a shame you have to resort to this, but we've pretty
exhaustively explored the alternatives, as I recall.

The best solution I can think of is for groff to fix

https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?60052

...people may then feel less trepidation about using tbl(1) for this
sort of application.

But just imagine how disappointed Ralph Corderoy would be if groff
changed in this dramatic fashion!

> In this case, nf/fi is actually redundant, no?  Isn't EX/EE a strict
> superset of nf/fi?  I think of it as being nf/fi + monospace.

Yes.

[...]
> Ahh, now I understad your rationale: a fallback in case EX/EE doesn't
> exist.  I'll keep using just EX/EE for meaning EX/EE, and not
> workaround its lack.

It's cheaper... ;-)

Regards,
Branden

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