From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-ID: <45a1363e50d95898516db9a4a68174a5@google.com>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] sam command language
From: "rob pike, esq." <r@geekmail.cc>
In-Reply-To: <D8mdnS85i8qGFB6iU-KYuA@comcast.com>
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Date: Wed,  8 Oct 2003 08:42:11 -0700
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> rob pike, esq. wrote:
>> ... The double meaning of \ in Unix and especially
>> Perl REs is regrettable at best.
>
> And especially in troff macro diversions.  I recall
> seeing \\\\\\\\ on more than one occasion.

That wasn't the double meaning I was referring to,
but yes.  I meant that \w makes w special but that
\* makes * not special.

Back to troff: in qed, \ was linear.  You added a
backslash to quote something.  In a macro, you
added two backslashes.  In a macro calling a
macro you added three, etc.   Instead of 2^N,
you needed N.

-rob