[bug #59290] add register to enable/disable backtraces on diagnostics

[G. Branden Robinson]

Update of bug #59290 (project groff):

                Category:              Macro - ms => Core                   
                 Summary: [ms]: add register to enable backtraces on
diagnostics => add register to enable/disable backtraces on diagnostics

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Follow-up Comment #4:

I agree with Ingo that this is a generalizable issue.

Unfortunately the only naming convention that the groff core honors is that a
leading dot means a register is read-only.  By definition, this one would be
writable.

I therefore have no brilliant ideas what to call it.  The one most congruent
with existing "core" writable registers suggests a choice of `backtrace`,
which is also pretty likely users' choice for a name.

On the other hand, it's hard to imagine what use user code would have for such
a variable name unless it was to do something similar to what we already have
in mind.  I.e., it's conceivable someone is doing something like this.


.de my*deep*macro
.if \n[backtrace] .backtrace


While this would step on such a hypothetical roff author's toes, there is no
way to ask the formatter whether it recently issued an error or warning
message, so I can see the above sort of thing being written to work around
such a deficiency, possibly with hand-written and possibly redundant validity
checks on string or register contents.

(I'm on the record--but I'll reiterate here--that I am not a fan of
Thompsonesque abbreviation practices. `bt` is not only uncommunicative but
even more likely to collide with user-selected names.)

Worthy of consideration for groff 1.23.1, maybe.

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