[bug #62776] [troff] want "style" warning category for self-deceptive inputs

[G. Branden Robinson]

Follow-up Comment #6, bug #62776 (project groff):

[comment #5 comment #5:]

> One may not be saying something meaningful to groff, but may be to a human
reader.  For example, if a user-defined macro should not cause a break, and
that macro invokes five requests, two of which cause a break, then as far as
roff is concerned, only those two need the ' at the start of the line.  But as
a courtesy to readers (including the future version of oneself), one might
well write them all with a leading ' so that it's clear at a glance that the
macro does not cause a break, without the reader having to have memorized, or
having to look up, which requests break.

But if you enable the warning, you'll be told as much.  (Well, it'll be an
inverse oracle.)

Also I think the technique you describe, which I have not seen in the wild,
might be too clever by half.  Better to say in English in a comment, "This
macro is intended to cause no breaks.", no?
 
> Semi-relatedly, a more warning-worthy situation is one that came up recently
on the list, the construction:
> 
> 'br
> 
> It's not even clear what this _should_ do (I think it turned out to be a
no-op, at least in groff), so that's probably worth warning about.

Agreed.


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