bugGNU roff - Bugs: bug #55027, contrib/hdtbl/hdmisc.tmac:...

 
 

bug #55027: contrib/hdtbl/hdmisc.tmac: register '<<' uninitialized

Submitter:  Bjarni Ingi Gislason <bjarniig>
Submitted:  Thu 15 Nov 2018 02:08:51 AM UTC
   
 
Category:  Macro - others/general Severity:  2 - Minor
Item Group:  Warning/Suspicious behaviour Status:  Need Info
Privacy:  Public Assigned to:  None
Open/Closed:  Open Planned Release:  None
* Mandatory Fields

Add a New Comment Rich Markup
   

Wed 26 Jul 2023 01:57:18 AM UTC, comment #4: 

I don't believe that modification addresses the objection to the patch raised in comment #1.

Dave <barx>
Group Member
Wed 26 Jul 2023 01:42:38 AM UTC, comment #3: 

  My patch is incorrect, it should be

.if !r<< .nr << 0


Bjarni Ingi Gislason <bjarniig>
Sun 23 Jul 2023 12:07:39 AM UTC, comment #2: 

As Ingo points out, the proposed patch is not based on any root-cause analysis and merely silences a potentially meaningful warning.  The patch being invalid, I'm removing "[PATCH]" from the Summary.

But the uninitialized register does, as Ingo also says, show that either the documentation or the code is incomplete, so I disagree that the bug report should be closed.  It can exist as a low-priority bug until someone puts in the work to understand (or define) how the register is intended to be used.

Dave <barx>
Group Member
Thu 15 Nov 2018 11:33:04 AM UTC, comment #1: 

Well read the comments, the register \n[<<] is obviously meant to contain the vertical blank space at the top of a new column in columnated text - though how that information is supposed to get into that register is unclear to me right now.  So there may be a bug - or missing information in the documentation if ".nr <<" is supposed to be set by the user.

What you are doing here is absolutely not how software development is done.  "I don't understand it, so i will change the code."  NO.  "There is a warning that i don't understand, so i will silence it without understanding it."  NO.

A warning is actually useful if the code is fishy and nobody understands yet whether there is an issue or what the issue is exactly, to remind people that better understanding of the point is needed.

And again: it is trivial to find warnings (maybe with the exception of warnings that can only be found with unusual tools or compilers), they do not need to be in the bugtracker.  The real work required is to figure out whether there is an actual problem and if so, to implement a correct fix.  Until then, the warning has to stay.  Saying the obvious, "there is a warning", is a waste of everybody's time.

I suggest to close this report as useless - but since others disagreed in the past, i'll not do the closing myself.  Somebody else please close it.

Ingo Schwarze <schwarze>
Group Member
Thu 15 Nov 2018 02:08:51 AM UTC, original submission:  

From e60fc6e09035f713fc6e7686cc37ee4e7ee4af78 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Bjarni Ingi Gislason <bjarniig@rhi.hi.is>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2018 02:01:17 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] contrib/hdtbl/hdmisc.tmac: Define register '<<'

  The numeric register '<<' is only used once in the "hdtbl"-source.
Its meaning is unknown.  Its value is set to '0' by groff, which can
issue a warning about this undefined register.

  This is one part of the bug-report #54473 Chess_board.roff: Many
registers are not defined.

Signed-off-by: Bjarni Ingi Gislason <bjarniig@rhi.hi.is>
---
 contrib/hdtbl/hdmisc.tmac-u | 4 ++++
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)


diff --git a/contrib/hdtbl/hdmisc.tmac-u b/contrib/hdtbl/hdmisc.tmac-u
index ebbbddb3..5dd952bf 100644
--- a/contrib/hdtbl/hdmisc.tmac-u
+++ b/contrib/hdtbl/hdmisc.tmac-u
@@ -188,6 +188,10 @@ along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 .\"        **        Seitenanfang zurueckgesetzt.                                **
 .\"        **        ganz richtig ist .sp + .br = .br + .sp = .sp                **
 .\"        ******************************************************************
+.\" Initialize register '<<'.  The meaning is unknown.  It is only
+.\"   used once (undefined) in the macro "t*SP".
+.nr << 0
+
 .de t*SP
 .  if (\\n[nl] < 0) \
 .    br                        \"        start very first page
--
2.19.1


Bjarni Ingi Gislason <bjarniig>

 

(Note: upload size limit is set to 16384 kB, after insertion of the required escape characters.)

Attach Files:
   
   
Comment:
   

No files currently attached

 

Depends on the following items: None found

Items that depend on this one: None found

 

Carbon-Copy List
  • -email is unavailable- added by barx (Posted a comment)
  • -email is unavailable- added by gbranden (Updated the item)
  • -email is unavailable- added by schwarze (Posted a comment)
  • -email is unavailable- added by bjarniig (Submitted the item)
  •  

    There are 0 votes so far. Votes easily highlight which items people would like to see resolved in priority, independently of the priority of the item set by tracker managers.

    Only logged-in users can vote.

     

    Follow 5 latest changes.

    Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
    2023-07-23 barx Summary[PATCH] contrib/hdtbl/hdmisc.tmac: Define register '&lt;&lt;' contrib/hdtbl/hdmisc.tmac: register '<<' uninitialized
    2022-01-11 gbranden Item GroupNone Warning/Suspicious behaviour
    2018-11-15 schwarze CategoryNone Macro - others/general
        Severity3 - Normal 2 - Minor
        StatusNone Need Info

    Back to the top

    Powered by Savane 3.13-3230.
    Corresponding source code