Re: [Groff] meaning of \[or] glyph

[Werner LEMBERG]

> But 7th Ed. version of troff has \(or with a width of 9 in the
> special font, ftS.c, but has `|' in ASCII 124's, commented `|',
> position in most other font files, e.g. ftR.c, with a width of 2.

Unfortunately, this doesn't really help; groff's metrics differ (this
has already been done by James Clark).

While there are glyphs like \[br] which should always have the same
shape regardless of the current font, I believe that \[or] should be
font-specific: For example, a slanted font should have a slanted \[or]
symbol if used as the bitwise-or operator for C and C++ since source
code is text, not mathematics.

Looking into UTP, \[or] is indeed described as `or'.

The problem is that \[or] might have been used for different purposes,
e.g. denoting divisibility of whole numbers.

Anyway, I have to make a decision, and I have decided to be
conservative (contrary to my own conviction): groff will treat \[or]
as font-invariable, i.e., the font shape will always be the same.


    Werner