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From: holte@brueer.UUCP (Robert Holte)
Newsgroups: net.bugs.4bsd,net.unix-wizards,net.text
Subject: Re: The command "roffbib -x" doesn't work.
Message-ID: <172@brueer.brueer.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 31-May-85 18:24:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: brueer.172
Posted: Fri May 31 18:24:20 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Jun-85 13:43:06 EDT
References: <148@dcl-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Dept of EE & E, Brunel University, Uxbridge, U.K.
Lines: 52
Xref: linus net.bugs.4bsd:1240 net.unix-wizards:10582 net.text:364
Xpath: reading gateway.cs


>  When I use the command "roffbib -x <file>" I get the error
> "Error: record at line <n> too long".
> 
> When I omit the "-x" flag, I don't get any errors.
> 
> NAME:	Vicente Aragon Ramirez		Project: Circe information retrieval
> UUCP:	...!ukc!icdoc!dcl-cs!vince	PHONE:	+44 524 65201 Ext. 4599


Roffbib is little more than a call to refer -B
The default for refer -B is to precede the contents of the
abstract (%X) field by a call to the .AP macro.
One can specify another macro, say MM, simply by refer -BX.MM

One way to have abstracts ignored is  refer "-BX.ig ]-" 
This places a call to  .ig ]-  (an nroff macro meaning ignore all
input text up to the next call to .]-) prior to the abstract contents.
]- is the macro refer uses at the beginning of every bibliographic entry.

An ed input script which can be used to modify a copy of roffbib
(/usr/bin/roffbib) so that the -x option has this effect is given at
the end of this message.

Note that there are many restrictions in refer/roffbib regarding the
sizes of various strings. For instance, the error message printed above
is not specific to long abstracts: "record" refers to the concatenation
of all the fields specified for a given entry, and it is possible to exceed
the maximum "record" size of 1536 characters without any abstract at all
(e.g. if you had many authors with long names writing an article with a
long title in an edited collection...). Most of the limits are easily
changed in the refer source (the one in question is QLEN, a constant
defined in refer..c).

-- Rob Holte		JANET,ARPA: holte%brueer@ucl-cs
   Brunel University	      UUCP: ...seismo!ukc!reading!brueer!holte
   England

-------------- ed input script to patch up /usr/bin/roffbib ------------
----- *****  before using change "DOT" to "."  ***** ---------------------
44c
	(echo .ds TL $headr; refer -a1 "$abstr") | $xroff $flags $macro
DOT
42c
	(echo .ds TL $headr; refer -a1 "$abstr" $*) | $xroff $flags $macro
DOT
19c
		abstr=-BX.ig\ ]-
DOT
8c
abstr=-B
DOT
w