Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: VI/NROFF symbolics question
Message-ID: <889@auspex.UUCP>
Date: 24 Jan 89 20:21:12 GMT
References: <108@mdiva1.uucp> <418@elan.UUCP>
Reply-To: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 51


 >> I am a IBM SCRIPT and GGML user.  I need to know how to
 >> do a symbolic reference in VI and NROFF. (i.e. I want to
 >> be able to define a table of symbolic strings and their
 >> expanded names or string.  Then I want to only type the
 >> symbolics in the text and have the system input the expanded
 >> names when I run off the text.)

 >In nroff you can define any string you want in a nterm file.  
 >These files are found in /usr/lib/nterm.

I think you meant to say "in the DWB X.y version of 'nroff', you can
define any string you want...", or perhaps "in the Elan Computer Group
version of 'nroff'...".  I sure don't remember that feature being
present in older versions of "nroff"; I do know that in some DWB release
(2.0, I think) "nroff" was "modernized" (merged back into the
"modernized" (whatever)-Independent TROFF, and upgraded to read ASCII
printer-specification files).

While this may *work* in his case, I don't think it's necessarily what
he *wanted*.  I think he basically wanted what, as I remember from a
brief scan of the SCRIPT documentation, are basically "variables", so
that you can say (NOTE: this is not SCRIPT syntax, I don't know what
that is; it's a pseudo-syntax intended to give the general idea)

	.set variable "FOO" to "Hi, mom!"

	...
	And now, the variable "FOO" is set to "\{FOO\}".

and have it print

	And now, the variable "FOO" is set to "Hi, mom!".

Well, "vi" doesn't do any of that; it's just a dumb editor and knows
relatively little of "nroff".  The way you do that with "nroff" and
"troff", though, is with "strings":

	.ds FO "Hi, mom!"

	...

	And now, the string "FO" is set to \*FO.

Unfortunately, in vanilla versions of "nroff"/"troff", strings can have
only one-character or two-character names, although as a consolation
prize you can use non-alphanumeric characters in those names.  However,
you have to be careful to avoid using names also used by whatever macro
package you're using; the macro package documentation *might* list all
the names (or classes of names) it uses, but if it doesn't, you'll have
to look it up in the source for the macro package....