[bug #63581] "nroff -mom sample_docs.mom" causes infinite loop

[Peter Schaffter]

Follow-up Comment #7, bug #63581 (project groff):

Sorry for the delay in getting to this.  A recent upgrade to Ubuntu 22.04
proved catastrophic and I can't boot into my system.  Still working on it.

> >   The 'mom' package is for typesetting, not for typewriting (terminals
> > and line printers) and utf8 devices are for typewriting (see the file
> > DESC in the directory "font/devutf8" (postpro grotty).  See
> > groff_mom(7) (and grotty(1)).
> 
> I've never heard Peter Schaffter assert such a narrow horizon for his macro
package, and if he indeed wants to foreclose its use on terminal devices, this
is really easily done.
> 
> .if n .ab sorry, mom doesn't support terminals

> I'd prefer to hear from him directly on this question.

Bjarni got it right.  The mom macros are meant for PDF or PostScript output. 
Snippet from mom's documentation:

"Mom does not try to be all things to all people. In contrast to the normal
groff philosophy, she does not try to produce output that looks good no matter
where it’s displayed. She’s designed for primarily for PDF or PostScript
output, although with PRINTSTYLE TYPEWRITE she produces acceptable terminal
copy. No attempt is made to be compatible with older versions of troff."

Aborting on .if n seems too restrictive.  Perhaps just updating the
groff_mom(7) Description to read: "mom is a macro set for groff, designed
primarily to prepare documents for PDF and PostScript output.  mom is not
intended for formatting documents displayed at the terminal."


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