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Annotation of 43BSDReno/share/doc/usd/25.trofftut/tt07, revision 1.1.1.1

1.1       root        1: .\"    @(#)tt07        6.1 (Berkeley) 5/23/86
                      2: .\"
                      3: .NH
                      4: Strings
                      5: .PP
                      6: Obviously if a paper contains a large number of occurrences
                      7: of an acute accent over a letter `e',
                      8: typing
                      9: .BD \eo"e\e\'"
                     10: for each \*e
                     11: would be a great nuisance.
                     12: .PP
                     13: Fortunately,
                     14: .UL troff
                     15: provides a way in which you can store an arbitrary
                     16: collection of text in a `string',
                     17: and thereafter use the string name as a shorthand
                     18: for its contents.
                     19: Strings are one of several
                     20: .UL troff
                     21: mechanisms whose judicious use
                     22: lets you type a document
                     23: with less effort and organize
                     24: it
                     25: so that extensive format changes
                     26: can be made with few editing changes.
                     27: .PP
                     28: A reference to a string is replaced by whatever
                     29: text
                     30: the string was defined as.
                     31: Strings are defined with the command
                     32: .BD .ds .
                     33: The line
                     34: .P1
                     35: \&^ds e \eo"e\e'"
                     36: .P2
                     37: defines the string
                     38: .BD e
                     39: to have the value
                     40: .BD \eo"e\e\'"
                     41: .PP
                     42: String names may be either one or two characters long,
                     43: and are referred to by
                     44: .BD \e*x
                     45: for one character names or
                     46: .BD \e*(xy
                     47: for two character names.
                     48: Thus to get
                     49: t\*el\*ephone,
                     50: given the definition of the string
                     51: .BD e
                     52: as above,
                     53: we can say
                     54: t\e*el\e*ephone.
                     55: .PP
                     56: If a string must begin with blanks, define it as
                     57: .P1
                     58: \&.ds xx "      text
                     59: .P2
                     60: The double quote signals the beginning of the definition.
                     61: There is no trailing quote;
                     62: the end of the line terminates the string.
                     63: .PP
                     64: A string may actually be several lines long;
                     65: if
                     66: .UL troff
                     67: encounters a 
                     68: .BD \e
                     69: at the end of
                     70: .ul
                     71: any
                     72: line, it is thrown away and the next line
                     73: added to the current one.
                     74: So you can make a long string simply by ending each line
                     75: but the last with a backslash:
                     76: .P1
                     77: \&^ds xx this \e
                     78: is a very \e
                     79: long string
                     80: .P2
                     81: .PP
                     82: Strings may be defined in terms of other strings, or even in terms of themselves;
                     83: we will discuss some of these possibilities later.

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