[bug #68356] [troff] make warnings in category "missing" more helpful

"G. Branden Robinson" <[email protected]> Sun, 17 May 2026 13:52:38 -0400 (EDT)

Newsgroups	gmane.comp.printing.groff.bugs
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

URL:
  <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?68356>

                 Summary: [troff] make warnings in category "missing" more
helpful
                   Group: GNU roff
               Submitter: gbranden
               Submitted: Sun 17 May 2026 05:52:32 PM UTC
                Category: Core
                Severity: 3 - Normal
              Item Group: Warning/Suspicious behaviour
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Unlocked
         Planned Release: None


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Follow-up Comments:


-------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun 17 May 2026 05:52:32 PM UTC By: G. Branden Robinson <gbranden>
Often, when arguments are omitted from string or macro defining or appending
requests, the diagnostic does not disclose which request was in operation.
Over the past several years, diagnostics have largely come to do so, which is
a useful property because requests can be renamed.  It also helps the user
figure out when they've misspelled one request name for another, revealing
that their intentions were utterly mistaken by the formatter.


$ ./build/test-groff -ww
.ds
troff:<standard input>:1: warning: missing identifier [-w missing]
.de
troff:<standard input>:2: warning: missing identifier [-w missing]
.as
troff:<standard input>:3: warning: missing identifier [-w missing]
.am
troff:<standard input>:4: warning: missing identifier [-w missing]
.tr\" let's say 'tm' was meant
troff:<standard input>:5: warning: character translation request expects
sequence of character pairs as argument [-w missing]


Improve this situation.







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