Re: [Groff] [patch] Typographic quotes in -mdoc %T

[Steffen Nurpmeso]

Tadziu Hoffmann <address@hidden> wrote:
 |>> Should nroff render `` '' as typographical double quotes
 |>> instead of literal ASCII values?
 |> 

 |> wanted ... well, that is precisely why we have more expressive
 |> input notations, such as \(oq, \(cq, \(lq, and \(rq, (for
 |
 |I agree.  Also, it can't do this easily if it reads them as
 |separate input characters, unless we generalize the ligature
 |mechanism (like in TeX) to recognize sequences other than the
 |five "f"-combinations hardcoded into groff.

While i agree with you in that i think the input side can and
should be improved, really lazy and rude people even quarrel(ed)
with TeX:

  \catxy{"}{11}% disable "easy quotation mark support".
..
  % automatic double-quotation "support"
  \edef\dblQuotaAreOpen{\FALSE}%
..
  % Easy-Quotation-Mark-Support
  \catxy{"}{13}%
  \def"{%
          \relax%
          \ifnum\dblQuotaAreOpen=\TRUE %
                  ''\xdef\dblQuotaAreOpen{\FALSE}%
          \else%
                  ``\xdef\dblQuotaAreOpen{\TRUE}%
          \fi%
  }
..
[ff. in "after paragraph" hook]
        % is there an open double quotation mark?? Assumed to be an error!
        \ifnum\dblQuotaAreOpen=\TRUE %
                address@hidden double-quotation at end of par!^^J%
                (I will unset the error to avoid hundreds of these msgs!!!)}%
                \xdef\dblQuotaAreOpen{\FALSE}%
        \fi\relax%

That is "easy" as in "american-style" ;}

--steffen