Hi Oliver, On Tue Dec 3, 2024 at 9:57 PM CET, Oliver Corff wrote: > I thought of precomposed files as well, but what I really want is to > make groff collect the necessary data during the compile run by > prompting the user at the CLI, very much like the original mail user agent. > > [...] > > I could, of course, also write something in any script language that > converts my input into roff data, but I thought it would be nice to have > groff do the job directly.
I realized that it IS actually possible to use .rd to create a string: .de loadvar \" $1 = string name, $2 = prompt . di \\$1 . rd \\$2 . br . di . unformat \\$1 . chop \\$1 .. .loadvar name Name .loadvar email Email Your name is \*[name] and your email is \*[email]. However, I think what you are trying to do will end up being unnecessarily complex in troff. Creating a script which prompts the user and then generates troff syntax and runs troff on the user's behalf will be much easier because troff sucks as a general purpose programming language.[1] I speak from experience. ~ onf [1] Not that TeX is any better in this regard.
