Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 10:09:31 +1100 (EST) From: Bruce Evans <brde@optusnet.com.au> To: Benjamin Kaduk <bjk@freebsd.org> Cc: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: em dashes in mdoc (was Re: Hello fdclose) Message-ID: <20140320093525.N1015@besplex.bde.org> In-Reply-To: <alpine.GSO.1.10.1403191236550.21026@multics.mit.edu> References: <CAGOYWV80vTTQbvSjvNa6XBzBiKy%2BjnGantkUH_RO=8prxoHmyQ@mail.gmail.com> <201403181404.52197.jhb@freebsd.org> <20140319071034.H996@besplex.bde.org> <alpine.GSO.1.10.1403191236550.21026@multics.mit.edu>
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On Wed, 19 Mar 2014, Benjamin Kaduk wrote:
> [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.
I thought the double hyphen was used more. A single hyphen is especially
bad for em-dash in C and math ASCII text since it normally means a minus
sign.
> 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?
I just noticed that old gnu man pages use double dashes more, and ones that
haven't been fully translated to mdoc even have a macro for it. E.g., from
patch.1:
%%%
'\"
'\" Set up \*(-- to give an unbreakable dash;
'\" string Tr holds user defined translation string.
'\" Bell System Logo is used as a dummy character.
'\"
.if !d Tr .ds Tr
.ie n \{\
.tr \(*W-\*(Tr
.ds -- \(*W-
.if (\n(.H=4u)&(1m=24u) .ds -- \(*W\h'-12u'\(*W\h'-12u'-\" diablo 10 pitch
.if (\n(.H=4u)&(1m=20u) .ds -- \(*W\h'-12u'\(*W\h'-8u'-\" diablo 12 pitch
.ds L" ""
.ds R" ""
.ds L' '
.ds R' '
'br \}
.el \{\
.ds -- \(em\|
.tr \*(Tr
.ds L" ``
.ds R" ''
.ds L' `
.ds R' '
'br\}
%%%
I don't understand the syntax for this. patch.1 actually uses double
dashes (not em-dashes) a lot for gnu-style options. In the old version,
the source code for the -c option is:
.B "\-c, \-\-context"
Lots of hard-coding there, in a way that disguises the double dashes
(I missed this at first by grepping for "\--").
In the current version, the corresponding source code is:
.It Fl c, Fl Fl context
Bruce
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