Re: groff injects blank page; and program 'pnmtops' can't handle -nosetpage option; can't generate doc/gnu.eps

[Carlos]

On Sat, Apr 22, 2023 at 05:37:24AM -0500, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> Hi Carlos,
> 
> I'll resequence your mail to put the issue you wanted to set aside last.
> 
> At 2023-04-22T05:26:37-0400, Carlos wrote:
> > Currently running 
> > 
> > the called subprograms:
> > 
> > GNU grops (groff) version 1.22.4
> > GNU troff (groff) version 1.22.4
> 
> Just to establish some common ground, this is indeed the latest release,
> from December 2018.  We are working hard to try to get groff 1.23.0
> out--we are currently at release candidate 4.  The forthcoming release
> fixes literally hundreds of bugs and bears literally thousands of
> changes.
> 
> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/platform-testers/2023-04/msg00004.html
> 
> You are not obliged to try out this release candidate in any way, but I
> thought I'd mention it.

I woudn't mind. As a matter of fact I tried it out, save the program
'pnmtops' can't handle
 -nosetpage option; can't generate doc/gnu.eps sentence from the
 subject line above which prevented the whole thing
from compiling

> 
> > and whether it's running -man or -mandoc, it injects a blank unwanted
> > page in the very beginning of the document.
> 
> This does not sound like a known bug in groff 1.22.4.  But it does have
> a familiar ring.
> 
> > It doesn't matter whether it's a postscript file or a pdf afterwards,
> > groff inserts the blank page regardless
> > 
> > I'm not familiarized with groff but it seems as if a macro, in this
> > particular case, .TH, that is normally in the beginning of the page,
> > causes it,  or it's indirectly involved in this blank page. Doesn't
> > matter. If i were to focus enough on the page and say open sesame
> > it woudn't do anything. But if I were to type an .ig and two dots
> > in between that pesky `.TH` macro, the blank page disappears. So in
> > that sense, open sesame worked because ;) because the unwanted page
> > is no longer there. The formatting of the page is gone, and that's
> > more than an obvious Copernicus, but who cares, really?
> > 
> > The question is: what it's causing this unwanted blank page? Are
> > locales somehow responsible for it? 
> > 
> > Now. The interesting part is that `man -T ps <manpage> ` works without
> > an issue, but groff , or more precisely both -man and -mandoc don't
> > and still injects the blank page
> 
> It sounds to me like someone or something has modified a macro file and
> permitted a blank line to creep into it.  Your experiment with '.ig' was
> a good idea, but it is not clear to me _exactly_ where you put it.
> Perhaps you could email this list your an-old.tmac file.
> 
> Unfortunately, it is possible that the blank line crept into _any_ macro
> file that troff reads when starting up, and there can be quite a few of
> those.  Including localization macro files, but those aren't the first
> place I'd look, especially in groff 1.22.4.
> 
> Here is a simple experiment you can try, and my results with it.
> 
> $ echo '.TH foobar 1 baz qux' | nroff -man | cat -n
>      1  foobar(1)                   General Commands Manual                  
> foobar(1)
>      2
>      3
>      4
>      5  qux                                   baz                            
> foobar(1)
> 
> If your output differs, we'll want to know.
> 

     1  
     2  foobar(|)                                                            
foobar(|)
     3  
     4  
     5  
     6  qux                                   baz                            
foobar(|)

That's my result from the teletype. And xterm confirms the same pretty
much


> Here's a way to look for blank lines in macro files, with the results
> from my system.
> 
> $ grep -l '^\s*$' /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/{*.tmac,mdoc/*}
> /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/devtag.tmac
> /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/hdmisc.tmac
> /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/hdtbl.tmac
> /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/m.tmac
> /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/mse.tmac
> /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/om.tmac
> /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/pdf.tmac
> /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/pdfmark.tmac
> /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/s.tmac
> /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/spdf.tmac
> /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/www.tmac
> 
> These aren't necessarily a problem--as you noted, the `ig` request can
> make blank lines harmless.  But because they're so troublesome, we've
> arranged for groff 1.23.0 to have fewer.
> 
> $ git describe
> 1.23.0.rc4-83-g0dbc3f6c4
> $ grep -l '^\s*$' tmac/{*.tmac,mdoc/*}
> tmac/devtag.tmac
> tmac/pdf.tmac
> tmac/psfig.tmac
> tmac/s.tmac
> 
> (Maybe we can kill the rest off for groff 1.24...)
> 
> Let us know what you find.

so far 

$ grep -l '^\s*$' /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/{*.tmac,mdoc/*}
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/devtag.tmac
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/hdmisc.tmac
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/hdtbl.tmac
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/m.tmac
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/mse.tmac
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/om.tmac
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/pdf.tmac
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/pdfmark.tmac
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/s.tmac
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/spdf.tmac
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/www.tmac


/usr/share/groff/1.22.4$ grep -l '^\s*$' tmac/{*.tmac,mdoc/*}
tmac/devtag.tmac
tmac/hdmisc.tmac
tmac/hdtbl.tmac
tmac/m.tmac
tmac/mse.tmac
tmac/om.tmac
tmac/pdf.tmac
tmac/pdfmark.tmac
tmac/s.tmac
tmac/spdf.tmac
tmac/www.tmac


but makes no difference on stdout unfortunately



> 
> > First about the error `program 'pnmtops' can't handle -nosetpage
> > option; can't generate doc/gnu.eps`
> >  can't go past this very particular cvs compilation after
> > who-knows-how-many-tries so far with this `program 'pnmtops' can't
> > handle -nosetpage option; can't generate doc/gnu.eps` error
> > 
> > program 'pnmtops' can't handle -nosetpage option; can't generate doc/gnu.eps
> > make[1]: *** [Makefile:14627: doc/gnu.eps] Error 1
> > 
> > But anyhow. I just wanted to compile from cvs
> 
> Wow, where did you dig up a live CVS repository of groff?
> 
> The project switched to Git at least ten years ago.
> 
> The Autoconf test for pnmtops might be a little misleading.  I notice
> that the one in groff 1.22.4 doesn't `AC_REQUIRE` the
> `GROFF_HTML_PROGRAMS` Autoconf test that checks for pnmtops in general.
> 
> (Let me see if groff Git HEAD still has that problem...
> 
> ...no.  We (I) renamed some of the tests, but the substantive
> functionality is still needed and still checked for.  An AC_REQUIRE is
> now present.)
> 
> So I would make sure you have the "netpbm" package installed on your
> system.  On a Debian-based one, this can be done with "apt install
> netpbm".  We've had this check since 2006 or earlier, so it's really
> hard to believe there's a version of netpbm still in the wild that lacks
> the '-nosetpage' option flag.
> 
> > rather than from the tarball. In the end I found out I had the latest
> > released version, so I gave up.
> > 
> > And this issue can be tackle later on really. Let's put it aside for
> > now.
> 
> Regards,
> Branden



-- 
Trying to be happy is like trying to build a machine for which the only
specification is that it should run noiselessly.