Dave Kemper <saint.s...@gmail.com> wrote: > It's documented in the groff manual in section 5.19; see the sentence > "Strings, macros, and diversions (and boxes) share the same name > space" and the following few paragraphs.
That doesn't describe it. But indeed the following sentences (of the groff manual) do. But it is not described in the troff manual. Rather the opposite is described in ยง 7.1: "Macros are interpolated with .xx [...] Strings are interpolated with \*x and \*(xx". So it is specified for groff, but other troff implementations could behave different even if they are according the troff manual. Sharing the same name space is only a matter of the symbol table handling. E.g. in C char and char * share the same name space but you cannot save all information of a char * in a char in any case. It would be legal if strings and macros share the same name space but troff would give a type mismatch warning if one uses \*... for a macro or .xx for a string (IMHO even according the troff manual(?)). That number registers have an own name space is something special to troff which can't be found in most other important languages. Carsten
