Follow-up Comment #11, bug #66919 (group groff): At 2025-03-18T14:35:22-0400, Dave wrote: > Follow-up Comment #10, bug #66919 (group groff): > > Not trying to be difficult. What I'm trying to get at is that the > comment #4 test file shows observable output changing from all prior > groffs I have in my grasp (which span nearly 20 years).
Fair, and I'm not upset with you about that. (Or, really, upset at
all. Just frustrated at bugs that hide from the light.)
> You confirmed this output change but ascribed it to a change in
> startup tmac files, which I refuted in comment #7.
Not completely. You refuted, I think, that a change in "latin1.tmac"
was the culprit. There are other startup files, and perhaps one of
those is to blame. When instrumenting `hcode` with the debugging
statement shown previously, I see "ps.tmac" and "en.tmac" getting busy.
Maybe I really did manage to change the way way `hcode` works. But I'm
confident, given the aforementioned instrumentation, that "not
recognizing a special character" isn't what's going on.
> So if not that, what _is_ the source of the behavior change? Either
> my refutation needs refuting, or the parser is doing something
> different with the same input. And if the latter, is this an
> accidental or intentional change? I suspect accidental, only because
> if intentional I think by now you would have remembered doing it and
> seized up a ticket or commit that explained it.
Yeah, I think it's time to bust out a Git bisection.
> As ever, I don't object to breaking back compatibility per se. But I
> believe a compatibility-breaking change should be justifiable to serve
> some larger purpose. If this _was_ an intentional parser change with
> such a purpose, we can log it in NEWS and move on. But right now it
> seems we don't yet know _why_ the output has changed. (Or at least
> _I_ don't; if you do, maybe we've gone back to talking past each
> other.)
No, I can't account for it, either, which means we need to RCA out the
truffle.
> Does this clarify the principles I'm working from?
Yup. My objection is pretty much the haste with which you reached a
diagnosis, which I think may have led me to undertake invalid
experiments.
> Do you disagree with any of the foregoing?
Nope. I'll get to bisecting.
_______________________________________________________
Reply to this item at:
<https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?66919>
_______________________________________________
Message sent via Savannah
https://savannah.gnu.org/
signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
