nroff -mm macro question

[Greg A. Woods]

In article <2570002 at hpcc01.HP.COM> burch at hpcc01.HP.COM (Jeff Burch) writes:
> I am using the MM macro package for nroff and need to know the trick to
> escape a back slash for a ".VL" label. For example:
>[....]
> I have tried putting "\\" or "\\\" rather than "\" on the ".LI" line
> without any luck.

Since the '\' is the escape character, and since troff can sometimes
interpret text several times (eg. in diversions), use of '\' must be
sort of recursive (i.e.  one get's stripped off each time the text is
read), one either has to change the escape charater to something else,
or use the special character "escape", which prints the equivalent of
the current escape character ("\e").  It is in The Fine Manual!  :-)

> How in the heck does one learn how to read these macros???

One doesn't.... these are the "compacted" versions, with what little
comments and indendation from the sources removed.... at least not
without going slightly insane!

I usually re-indent them if I must try to read them.

There's also macref from DWB that will do cross-reference listings.
-- 
							Greg A. Woods
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