[tz] [PATCH v2] tzfile.5: Fix indentation

[Paul Eggert]

On 2024-03-17 12:06, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> Can I ask how the existing system of measurement units in *roff is
> unsatisfactory for your application?

Previously, tzfile.5 used only directives like ".IP *", ".IP * 2", 
".RS", and ".RE" to control indenting. But after Alex suggested here:

https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2023-October/033116.html

that we switch to ".IP * 3", I noticed that the resulting PDF output had 
too much white space around the "*", even though the nroff output looked 
sorta OK. (The problem had already been present with "2", but it got 
worse with "3".) The problem got even a bit worse if I used "\(bu" 
instead of "*". So the patch I installed computed widths with \w 
instead. See:

https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2023-October/058168.html



> I bring all this up because as a man(7) macro language advocate and
> (unpaid) instructor, I strive to keep the language's expression as
> simple as possible.

Yes, if users don't care about PDF or varying-width HTML output there's 
no point to using \w here.

The TZDB man pages already used \w for other things (lining up code and 
tables). Although a man page formatter that can't handle \w may be out 
of luck with \w in .IP directives, they were out of luck already.