23 Feb
2021
23 Feb
'21
4:42 p.m.
On Feb 23, 2021, at 3:47, M Douglas McIlroy
<m.douglas.mcilroy(a)dartmouth.edu> wrote:
If I remember correctly, it was an awk script printing out the
suggested pipeline to use. One could then cut and paste that line.
jaap
I can imagine a simple perl (or python or
whatever) script that would run
through groff input [and] determine which preprocessors are actually
needed ...
Brian imagined such and implemented it way back when. Though I used
it, I've forgotten its name. One probably could have fooled it by
tricks like calling pic only in a .so file and perhaps renaming .so.
But I never heard of it failing in real life. It does impose an extra
pass over the input, but may well save a pass compared to the
defensive groff -pet that I often use or to the rerun necessary when I
forget to mention some or all of the filters.