From: dxforth@gmail.com   
      
   On 21/11/2025 9:53 am, Paul Rubin wrote:   
   > dxf  writes:   
   >> When you say 'get around it', do you mean a broken line?   
   >   
   > The trouble distinguishing between a broken and an unbroken line when   
   > u1=line length.  I think for roff though, it's ok to abandon the wish to   
   > handle arbitrarily long lines.  The deficiency in the standard is not   
   > explaining READ-LINE's exact behaviour in this situation.  I was able to   
   > experimentally resolve the issue in gforth, but other Forths might vary.   
      
   My sense is anyone who uses REAL-LINE (or its equivalent in other langs) is   
   doing so on the basis that the line read is complete i.e. arbitrarily long   
   lines are not considered - and if one must - then use some other strategy.   
      
   > I had for a while liked the idea of running the entire input document   
   > through the text interpreter (wordlists or some other scheme would stop   
   > non-formatting-commands from being looked up as Forth words).  But I   
   > later mostly lost interest in that.   
   >   
   > I guess in the text interpreter, the interpreter is at the beginning of   
   > a line iff IN> @ gives 0, and maybe Roff could use that.   
      
   I seem to have enough tools and incentives to not use the text interpreter.   
   OTOH if it's there and doesn't get in the way, I can understand why people do.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)