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From: chris@hwcs.UUCP (Chris Miller)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: nroff - help wanted
Message-ID: <125@hwcs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Jul-84 05:50:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: hwcs.125
Posted: Thu Jul 12 05:50:03 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Jul-84 06:41:27 EDT
References: <407@kvvax4.UUCP> <400005@bradley.UUCP>
Organization: Computer Sci., Heriot-Watt U., Scotland
Lines: 18

Another way to incorporate form-feeds (or any other control-characters)
into nroff output, at least on all versions of Unix to which I have access,
is to use the *undocumented* (at least on all versions of Unix to
which I have access!) directive ".cf" (copy file), which copies the file
whose name is given as argument 1, e.g.

.cf /usr/lib/tmac/ff

where /usr/lib/tmac/ff contains a single form-feed.

Of course, the wisdom and ethics of using undocumented features, which
may disappear or change without warning, are open to all the usual
criticisms on the grounds of portability, maintainability and
comprehensibility.

The Unix versions where I know that .cf exists and behaves as described are
4.1bsd, V7 and ZEUS (a V7 port to a Zilog System 8000),
					Chris Miller
					Heriot-Watt University