[bug #64202] [man-pages]: groff_man(7) inconsistently (and redundantly) guards some .MR references with '\%'

[Keith Marshall]

URL:
  <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?64202>

                 Summary: [man-pages]: groff_man(7) inconsistently (and
redundantly) guards some .MR references with '\%'
                   Group: GNU roff
               Submitter: keithmarshall
               Submitted: Tue 16 May 2023 07:20:54 PM UTC
                Category: Macro man
                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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Follow-up Comments:


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Date: Tue 16 May 2023 07:20:54 PM UTC By: Keith Marshall <keithmarshall>
The title mostly says it all.  When groff_man(7) refers to tbl(1), eqn(1), and
refer(1), it does so using a reference of the form:

.MR \%tbl 1

while, when referring to any other page, such as groff(1), it omits the '\%'
hyphenation guard prefix:

.MR groff 1

In this context, the '\%' prefix is redundant; the MR macro -- at least in the
fall back within the man page source -- supplies an additional one anyway. 
Furthermore, specifying such a guard in the macro call imposes an unnecessary
burden on any macro implementation which constructs, for example, a PDF
external reference based on the MR macro arguments, because the generated
reference address must be passed through a sanitizer routine -- an unnecessary
overhead, when MR already prepends the '\%' in running text.

To illustrate the issue, I've attached a copy of groff_man.7.pdf, generated
from your git master source, and formatted by my development copy of pdfroff,
with complementary '-manpdf', (which, in its present state of development,
does not incur any address sanitizer overhead):

GROFF_TMAC_PATH=/path/to/groff-pdfmark/tmac ./pdfroff -manpdf groff_man.7 >
groff_man.7.pdf

Note the malformed https references for tbl(1), eqn(1), and refer(1), in the
"See also" section,for example.






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File Attachments:


-------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue 16 May 2023 07:20:54 PM UTC  Name: groff_man.7.pdf  Size: 71KiB  
By: keithmarshall
Illustration of malformed reference link addresses
<http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/download.php?file_id=54755>

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