60 lines
3.0 KiB
HTML
60 lines
3.0 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">
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<HTML>
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<HEAD>
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<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="LinuxDoc-Tools 0.9.21">
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<TITLE>: Appendix</TITLE>
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<LINK HREF="Howtos-with-LinuxDoc-10.html" REL=previous>
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<LINK HREF="Howtos-with-LinuxDoc.html#toc11" REL=contents>
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</HEAD>
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<BODY>
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Next
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<A HREF="Howtos-with-LinuxDoc-10.html">Previous</A>
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<A HREF="Howtos-with-LinuxDoc.html#toc11">Contents</A>
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<HR>
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<H2><A NAME="s11">11.</A> <A HREF="Howtos-with-LinuxDoc.html#toc11">Appendix</A></H2>
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<H2><A NAME="esc_seqs"></A> <A NAME="ss11.1">11.1</A> <A HREF="Howtos-with-LinuxDoc.html#toc11.1">Old Problem of Escape Sequences in Text Output</A>
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</H2>
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<P>Prior to version 0.9.21-0.8 there was a bug for the case of text
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output. For sgml2txt, the option --pass="-P-cbou" was needed to get
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pure text output since otherwise if you used the -f option, you got
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text output which put emphasis on words and letters by the use of
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escape sequences and overstriking. An example of a bullet made by
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overstriking is +^Ho which on a printer would type +, then backspace
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(^H), and then type o over the existing +. This doesn't seem to work
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on display terminals (they can't overstrike). Note that even if you
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have the most recent version, you'll still get this unwanted output if
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you fail to use the -f option.</P>
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<P>In case you are interested, the --pass passes the -P-cbou option to the
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groff program (used by sgml2txt) and the -P option of groff passes the
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-cbou options to grotty (a post-processor for groff) forcing grotty to
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generate just plain text output. See the grotty man page. In brief:
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-c avoids escape sequences but allows overstrikes but -bou prohibits
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overstrikes when the -c option is used. The result is no overstrikes
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and no escape sequences in the output. -b prohibits overstrikes to
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make a character look bold; -u prevents overstrikes for underlining;
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and -o prohibits other kinds of overstrikes like the bullet example
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above. An alternate way to eliminate overstrikes is to use the -f
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option with sgml2txt but you still have to pass the -c option to
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grotty to eliminate escape sequences unless you have the newer
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version.</P>
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<P>What a mess it was! The default should probably be plain text so that
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all of this passing of options wouldn't be needed. I've finally got
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them to fix this so after about mid-2007 you can use just the -f
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option instead of --pass="-P-cbou". If you get these escape sequences
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and overstrikes in your output file but use the Linux "cat" command to
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display the text, it looks great. But using pagers or editors on the
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text output file usually results in the escape characters being eaten
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so you see a bunch of unwanted characters in your text that were
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supposed to be part of escape sequences. In some cases, pagers can
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display certain overstrikes OK but editors (like vim) don't. So
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eliminating all overstrikes permits you to use any editor or pager to
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read it.</P>
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<HR>
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Next
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<A HREF="Howtos-with-LinuxDoc-10.html">Previous</A>
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<A HREF="Howtos-with-LinuxDoc.html#toc11">Contents</A>
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</BODY>
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</HTML>
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