[bug-notifications] [groff 0004280]: /opt/csw/share/groff/1.20.1/tmac/doc.tmac:3375: bad character definition

[Mantis Bug Tracker]

A NOTE has been added to this issue. 
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http://www.opencsw.org/bugtrack/view.php?id=4280 
====================================================================== 
Reported By:                skayser
Assigned To:                james
====================================================================== 
Project:                    groff
Issue ID:                   4280
Category:                   regular use
Reproducibility:            always
Severity:                   minor
Priority:                   normal
Status:                     assigned
====================================================================== 
Date Submitted:             2010-02-16 19:22 CET
Last Modified:              2010-02-20 12:46 CET
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Summary:                    /opt/csw/share/groff/1.20.1/tmac/doc.tmac:3375: bad
character definition
Description: 
Tested on build10x. When trying to format the autossh man page with gnroff,
gnroff throws a warning:

$ gnroff -man autossh.1 > /dev/null
/opt/csw/share/groff/1.20.1/tmac/doc.tmac:3375: bad character definition

The first part of the formatted man page (everything before the first .Sh)
looks a bit garbled, although I don't know whether that's because of the
above warning.

R] .if 0nl]   .    setup-header
...
UNTITLED                             LOCAL                           
UNTITLED
...
$] .tm Usage: .Sh section_name ...
(http://www.opencsw.org/bugtrack/view.php?id=0.c])

I have attached the man page so that you can reproduce the warning message
if necessary (and maybe shed some light on the garbled output). WRT to the
warning message there is also a related bug report over at Gentoo:
http://bugs.gentoo.org/263524.
====================================================================== 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 (0007484) james (manager) - 2010-02-20 12:46
 http://www.opencsw.org/bugtrack/view.php?id=4280#c7484 
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
The autossh.1 man source file fits the groff mdoc format.  Should be
available with "man groff_mdoc" except the man page is, hurrah, mdoc format
and therefore broken. View with:

$ gnroff -mdoc /opt/csw/share/man/man7/groff_mdoc.7 | more

use the same flag with autossh.1 to get formatted text.  The same "bad
character definition" message is thrown up but it does work.  I'll
investigate this warning in the general case but the autossh man page still
needs writing if it's to work with /usr/bin/man (or provide cat man
pre-formatted).

A way round this generally would be to add an alternative man system that
used groff.  Seems like utter stupidity to me just to compensate for people
that can't (be bothered to) write a correct man page.