[bug #61829] [libdriver] unhelpful diagnostics when font nonexistent

[G. Branden Robinson]

URL:
  <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?61829>

                 Summary: [libdriver] unhelpful diagnostics when font
nonexistent
                 Project: GNU troff
            Submitted by: gbranden
            Submitted on: Sat 15 Jan 2022 08:01:09 AM UTC
                Category: Device - others/general
                Severity: 2 - Minor
              Item Group: Warning/Suspicious behaviour
                  Status: In Progress
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: gbranden
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
         Planned Release: None

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Details:

When processing intermediate output, diagnostic messages are not
as helpful as they could be.  They are excusable in groff
1.22.4, but my refactoring last September made the font library
a bit quieter in its inner reaches, where it doesn't know how
serious problems are.  I'll have good news about that later.

First, here's groff 1.22.4 behavior.


$ cat EXPERIMENTS/bad_font.out
x T utf8
x res 240 24 40
x init
p1
x font 1 R
x font 2 I_DO_NOT_EXIST
$ grotty EXPERIMENTS/bad_font.out
grotty:EXPERIMENTS/bad_font.out:6: can't find font file 'I_DO_NOT_EXIST'
grotty:EXPERIMENTS/bad_font.out:6: fatal error: sorry, I can't continue


We have two diagnostic messages where really we need only one.
On the bright side, not only the line number but the text of the
first message make it clear what is wrong.

However, some font library refactoring (commit 2dff87d3ed, 17
September) tidied this up in a way that causes some collateral
frustration.


$ ./build/grotty -F font -F build/font EXPERIMENTS/bad_font.out
./build/grotty:EXPERIMENTS/bad_font.out:6: fatal error: sorry, I can't
continue


However, it turns out that the immediate context of this
terrible diagnostic message in fact knows everything it needs
to.  Here's the result of a patch I have in preparation.


$ ./build/grotty -F font -F build/font EXPERIMENTS/bad_font.out
./build/grotty:EXPERIMENTS/bad_font.out:6: fatal error: cannot find font
'I_DO_NOT_EXIST'


That's more like it--one step back, but two steps forward.

(I'm dithering over whether to include the word "file" after
"font".  See [https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?61423#comment9
comment #9 to Savannah ticket #61423] for why.





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