[bug #60820] groff.texi: clarify meaning of | operator in vertical-movement contexts

[Dave]

URL:
  <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?60820>

                 Summary: groff.texi: clarify meaning of | operator in
vertical-movement contexts
                 Project: GNU troff
            Submitted by: barx
            Submitted on: Thu 24 Jun 2021 08:03:54 PM CDT
                Category: Core
                Severity: 2 - Minor
              Item Group: Documentation
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
         Planned Release: None

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Details:

doc/groff.texi presently says, "a leading '|' operator indicates an absolute
position. For vertical movements, it specifies the distance from the top of
the page;"

But this is not quite what happens.  CSTR#54 attempted to explain it--"For
vertically-oriented requests and functions, |N becomes the distance in basic
units from the current vertical place on the page or in a diversion... to the
vertical place N"--but I find this not terribly illuminating.  Whether that's
a flaw with the text or with me is an open question.

On the email list, Tadziu provided a very detailed explanation of what's
happening (http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2021-06/msg00093.html). 
However, I'm at a loss how to distill this down to an explanation suitable for
the Texinfo manual.  So I have no suggested replacement wording, just an
observation that the current text is a simplification that turns out to be
incorrect in certain cases.




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