(This is for groff 1.24.) I've opened the following ticket after getting a surprise.
https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?64131 In AT&T troff, you cannot remove a read-only register like `.l`. It throws no diagnostic; it silently refuses the request. In groff, you can. As far as I can tell, this has always been the case. If you try to access these registers later, they will be re-created as normal registers, with values of zero, and even if they don't screw up the formatter internally, they will become unrecoverably useless for documents and macro packages; there is no way to re-associate their names with the internal formatter state they reflect by default. Does anyone have any knowledge of whether this was a deliberate choice in James Clark's design? If so, what was the justification? I intend to shut this door (and prohibit their renaming as well, an inconceivable operation in AT&T troff). Figure I'll probably lock up the `.T` string as well. Regards, Branden
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