Re: bin/50680: man page for top(1) does not properly display default delay

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR bin/50680; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>
To: gnats-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost
Cc: 
Subject: Re: bin/50680: man page for top(1) does not properly display default delay
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2016 14:36:38 +0700

     Date:        Wed, 20 Jan 2016 03:15:00 +0000 (UTC)
     From:        paul%whooppee.com@localhost
     Message-ID:  <20160120031500.E9B547ACBA%mollari.NetBSD.org@localhost>
 
 
   | 	Despite the setting of "register D" to 5 (with the .ar directive),
 
 You mean .nr I think, but I suspect that mandoc doesn't implement that at all.
 
   | 	when the man page renders '.af D 1' (in the description of the -s
   | 	option), it generates nothing.
 
 I have no idea what the thought behind that was, but even in full blown
 *roff, that wouldn't generate anything - ".af" sets the format of the
 register given ('1' would indicate to print in the normal way that
 integers are usually printed, as opposed to 'a' which prints a b c ...
 for 1 2 3, or 'i' which prints i ii iii ... (or I for I II III))
 But af just sets the format associated with the register, it doesn't
 produce anything.
 
 For mandoc uses, the best that can probably be done at the minute would
 be to revert top.1 to version 1.5 (and simply have it say "5" and ignore
 register D completely).
 
 Better would be to fix mandoc to handle number & string registers, at least
 for simple uses (.af might be going a bit overboard...) as that's how *roff
 sources get to be parameterised (so the "5" can be defined once, and used
 multiple times - essentially the combination of a variable, & a #define).
 
 kre