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From: burch@hpcc01.HP.COM (Jeff Burch)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: nroff -mm macro question
Message-ID: <2570003@hpcc01.HP.COM>
Date: 9 Apr 91 18:07:44 GMT
References: <2570002@hpcc01.HP.COM>
Organization: HP Corp Computing & Services
Lines: 22

I want to thank everyone who replied to my basenote.
I have learned that \e in a macro will ALWAYS output a single \

Also, when nroff/troff read anything, a \\ will be converted to a \
In otherwords, the number of backslashes gets reduced by two.
The tricky part is "how many times will nroff/troff read a macro?"
It turns out that the .LI macro gets read 4 times. Therefore, eight
back slashes will be reduced by 4*2 into a single back slash.

So,

	.LI test\e.dat

	.LI test\\\\\\\\.dat

both give

	test.dat

for output!

Thanks again!