URL: <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?68166>
Summary: [mdoc] prevent collision of macro names with
user-visible roff features
Group: GNU roff
Submitter: None
Submitted: Sun 22 Mar 2026 08:02:23 AM UTC
Category: Macro package mdoc
Severity: 3 - Normal
Item Group: Lint
Status: None
Privacy: Public
Assigned to: None
Open/Closed: Open
Discussion Lock: Unlocked
Planned Release: None
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Follow-up Comments:
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Date: Sun 22 Mar 2026 08:02:23 AM UTC By: Anonymous
In http://lists.gnu.org/r/groff/2025-10/msg00092.html Ingo wrote: "The real
point why mandoc does not suffer from [bug #67646] is that to distinguish
callable macro names from plain-text arguments, it does not use roff(7)
registers (such use being an internal implementation detail of mdoc macro sets
that is apparently prone to clashes), but instead uses a separate hash table
of macro names that cannot clash with user-visible roff(7) language features."
Branden replied (http://lists.gnu.org/r/groff/2025-10/msg00095.html): "This
is possible but harder to do in the *roff language itself," but after onf
suggested an implementation framework
(http://lists.gnu.org/r/groff/2025-10/msg00097.html), Branden solicited a
patch (http://lists.gnu.org/r/groff/2025-11/msg00004.html).
It's unclear to me what problem he seeks to solve with this patch: It seems to
no longer be bug #67646, since that was fixed on 29 Oct 2025 and the email
asking for a patch is from 7 Nov 2025. It also appears to be a separate issue
from bug #68165, which arose in the same thread.
But since Branden sought a patch, and
[http://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/log/tmac/doc.tmac no code
change to tmac/doc.tmac has been made since his request], there appears to be
something else that he thought needed to be done here, hence this ticket to
track it. My hope is that someone better at following that conversation can
refine the problem description into something actionable.
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