Re: [Groff] An environment variable for enabling compatibility mode

[Christian Jensen]

On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, Werner LEMBERG wrote:

>
> According to the refer man page, you shouldn't do this but use the
> bracket-label command.  Don't do
>
>   .[ (
>   foo
>   .])
>
> (not the trailing space in the `.]' line!) but
>
>   .R1
>   bracket_label " (" ") " ", "
>   .R2
>
>   .[
>   foo
>   .]
>
> This gives you the possibility to change the formatting of the pre and
> post strings globally.

I have already defined the bracket_label as you suggest.

I admit I am not much of an expert on this and I may be revealing my
ignorance here, but here's what I do:

References can take several forms. A few examples:
___
(1)     "This was demonstrated in a recent publication (Beckman 1986)."

(2)     "As is stated in Beckman (1986) it is ..."

(3)     "Most of the studies of this were based on American English (e.g.
Beckman 1986, Ladd 1996) ... "

(4)     "This works claims that 'languages degenerate' (Sluijter 1996:247)."
___

(All of these follow the conventions within my field.)

Now, the two first I can handle just using

  "... publication."
  .[
  Beckman
  .]

and

  " ... in Beckman
  .[
  #Beckman
  .]
  it is ..."

But for number 3 I do:

  " ... American English
  .[(e.g.
  Ladd 1996
  .],
  .[
  Beckman 1986
  .])
  ... "

And 4:

  " ... 'languages degenerate'.
  .[ (
  Sluijter 1996
  .]:2472)


Admittedly, I has been some time since I looked at this, and maybe it is a
grim hack. But I definitely remember that it was not easy to get refer to
do what I wanted :). Please enlighten me.

Here is my .R1 - .R2 section, for reference:

  .R1
  database /home/chrjen/groff/bib/bibliography
  accumulate
  label "(@|Q) ' ' (D.y%a*|D)"; bracket-label " (" ) ", "
  date-as-label D.+yD.y%a*D.-y
  no-label-in-reference
  short-label "(D.y%a*|D)"
  sort A+
  sort-adjacent-labels
  move-punctuation
  .R2


Christian