On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 11:25:28PM -0500, Blake McBride wrote:
> I found that Groff and Heirloom handle backslashes in tables differently.
> I actually think both are wrong, but I am not sure. My input is as
> follows:
>
> .TS
> a a .
> INPUT PRODUCES
> \\\\ \\
> abc def
> .TE
>
>
>
> I am processing it with tbl & troff but no macro packages. They produce
> different results - both unexpected by me. What I am trying to produce is
> as follows:
>
> INPUT PRODUCES
> \\ \
> abc def
>
>
> (Yes, I am using tabs between the columns on the real input file.)
You've run into what (I think) was first stated as "Kernighan's Lemma"
which went something like:
In troff, the number of / characters necessary to output a single
/ character grows exponentially with macro depth.
This is why the \e escape was created:
... \e represents the current escape character.
To get a backslash glyph, use \(rs or \[rs].
groff(7)
Brian: I hope I represented this accurately. ;)
--
Mike Bianchi
Foveal Systems
973 822-2085
mbian...@foveal.com
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