Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 12:42:05 -0400 (EDT) From: Benjamin Kaduk <bjk@freebsd.org> To: Bruce Evans <brde@optusnet.com.au> Cc: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Subject: em dashes in mdoc (was Re: Hello fdclose) Message-ID: <alpine.GSO.1.10.1403191236550.21026@multics.mit.edu> In-Reply-To: <20140319071034.H996@besplex.bde.org> References: <CAGOYWV80vTTQbvSjvNa6XBzBiKy%2BjnGantkUH_RO=8prxoHmyQ@mail.gmail.com> <201403181404.52197.jhb@freebsd.org> <20140319071034.H996@besplex.bde.org>
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[changing cc list dramatically] On Wed, 19 Mar 2014, Bruce Evans wrote: > On Tue, 18 Mar 2014, John Baldwin wrote: > >> @@ -84,7 +130,9 @@ >> .Sh NOTES >> The >> .Fn fclose >> -function >> +and >> +.Fn fdclose >> +functions >> does not handle NULL arguments; they will result in a segmentation >> violation. >> This is intentional - it makes it easier to make sure programs written >> > > In the old version: > > Em-dash seems to be handled poorly by mdoc. It seems to be necessary > to hard code it. It shouldn't be hard coded as a hyphen. I seem to remember looking into mdoc's handling of em dashes a month or two ago, and concluding that mdoc did not handle em dashes at all. That is, I did not see any macros that attempted to render as a dash of any type, so that the man page author is required to hard code a dash as either one or two (or three, I suppose) hyphens. A scan of the prior art suggested that most existing instances use a single hyphen, and the double hyphen is quite rare. Warren did note that it is probably best to write in a style that avoids the need for the em dash, which I cannot really argue against. Bruce, do you have any details you can add about mdoc's interaction with em (or en) dashes? Thanks, Ben
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