[bug #42503] Illogical precedence of .hw over .hy

[Dave]

URL:
  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?42503>

                 Summary: Illogical precedence of .hw over .hy
                 Project: GNU troff
            Submitted by: barx
            Submitted on: Tue 03 Jun 2014 07:33:36 PM CDT
                Severity: 3 - Normal
              Item Group: None
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
         Planned Release: None

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Details:

This may not technically be a bug, but it is undocumented that it works this
way, and, I believe, not the ideal way to handle this case.

Consider this example:

$ groff -a << EOF
> .hw in-sa-lub-rious
> .hy 8
> insalubrious insalubrious insalubrious insalubrious insalubrious
insalubrious
> insalubrious insalubrious i i i i i i i i insalubrious
> EOF
<beginning of page>
insalubrious insalubrious insalubrious insalubrious insalubrious insalubrious
insalubrious insalubrious i i i i i i i i in<hy>
salubrious
$ 

The hyphenation provided in the .hw example says this is a valid hyphenation
point.  However, .hy mode 8 should tell groff not to hyphenate after only two
characters.

I believe it makes more sense to have the .hy mode take precedence over a
possible two-character hyphenation given in .hw, for the following reasons:

1) If you want to change hyphenation behavior, you should only have to change
the number given to .hy.  As it stands now, to change hyphenation behavior
across the board, one must change both the .hy value and all the words passed
to .hw that contain a syllable break after two characters.

2) If .hy mode 2 is active, it applies regardless of any .hw settings.  The
precedence rules should be consistent across all interactions between .hw and
.hy.

If the behavior is left as is, it should be documented in the .hw command.

(Also posted to bug-groff:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-groff/2013-10/msg00000.html)




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