[net.bugs.4bsd] -ms accent bug

mark@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Mark Turner) (03/27/85)

Apparently, in 1983 the -ms macros were revised to
include a .AM macro which, when placed at the head of
a file to be formatted by nroff/troff, allowed one to use 
various new accents and characters.  /usr/lib/tmac/tmac.s
on our 4.2 system contains the lines
.de AM
.so \*(\\s.acc
..
meaning, I take it, read and use /usr/lib/ms/s.acc.
Now, our /usr/lib/ms/s.acc contains the line

.ds d- \h'\*(#H'\(pd\h'-\w'~'u'\v'-.25m'\f2\(hy\fP\v'.25m'\h'-\*(#H'

This should mean that when one types \*(d- in a file sent through
n/troff, n/troff understands it as a lower case "eth", a character in Old
English.  The eth should look something like a partial-differential
sign with a dash through the stem.  The problem is: this line causes
troff to print the partial-differential-sign, and then backspace TWICE
to print a dash, and then proceed.  It should only backspace ONCE.
The result is: the dash occurs one character before it should, and
the character that should succeed the eth is printed on top of the
partial-differential sign.  I am too stupid to read the above code.
Can anyone tell me how to alter it so that the partial-differential
sign and the dash are overstruck?
Reply to . . . ihnp4!gargoyle!mark

jaap@mcvax.UUCP (Jaap Akkerhuis) (03/31/85)

In article <384@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> mark@gargoyle.UUCP ( Turner) writes:
 > Apparently, in 1983 the -ms macros were revised to
 > include a .AM macro which, when placed at the head of
 > a file to be formatted by nroff/troff, allowed one to use 
 > various new accents and characters.  /usr/lib/tmac/tmac.s
 > on our 4.2 system contains the lines...

Apparently, somebody in Berkeley thought it was a good idea to replace
the /usr/lib/tmac/tmac.s with something completly different for what
has been known before as ``the -ms'' [n]troff macros.

All of the enhancement's will probably work perfect in Berkeley, but
not with any other ``-ms'' package. Rename /usr/lib/tmac/tmac.s into
``-mBms'' (/usr/lib/tmac/tmac.Bms) for Berkeley (consider it Broken ms)
and rename ``-mos'' to ``-ms''.

Back to the problems with your accents (dyacritical marks). These
things are always installation (better, output device) dependent,
since the strings like \*<x> tend to produce a lot of local motions,
only effective on certain types of output devices.
So no general solution is available.

Good luck anyway,

	Jaap.