[bug #65052] [troff] `cf` behavioral anomalies

[Dave]

Follow-up Comment #2, bug#65052 (group groff):

[comment #0 original submission:]
> Issue B: "groff -a" ("approximate output") is not consistent
> with the foregoing.

I'm not sure that's an accurate assessment.  The typeset output has the "foo"
and the "baz" overstruck.  Terminal output, which can't overstrike, has to
choose which of those strings to represent.  The decision made by -Tascii and
-a are _different_, but they're both _consistent_ with the typeset output
within the limitations of a terminal.

If you want to argue that -Tascii and -a should make the same decision about
which overstruck character to favor, this isn't an issue with .cf per se, but
with anything that involves overstruck characters.


$ echo "a\o'bc'd" | groff -Tascii | cat -s
acd

$ echo "a\o'bc'd" | groff -a
<beginning of page>
ad

This -a output is arguably worse than your example because it displays neither
of the overstruck characters, whereas -Tascii does choose one of them to
display.  But in any case it is certainly unrelated to .cf.


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