Re: Bug#1016412: dh-make: manpage.1.ex: Incorrect formatting for dash

[Mike Bianchi]

I come into this very late and without having studied the on-going discussion.
For this I apologize.


> However, since many manual pages in existence are incorrect, and they 
> use '-'  >>> when they should use '\-' <<< ...

Let me take exception to the claim that  '-'  should be '\-' .  

In manual pages of UNIX/Linux commands, system calls, libraries, etc. all the
examples are for strings and negative numbers expressed in ASCII characters.
        man(1)
        execve(2)
        fileno(3)
           :

   To my mind the correct solution to the  '-'  controversy is to format
   everything at is an ASCII expression in an ASCII font which has no
   concept of '\-' .

((I come from the days when all UNIX documentation was formated using nroff.))

                                                        Mike Bianchi



On Sun, Jul 31, 2022 at 02:04:23PM +0200, Alejandro Colomar (man-pages) wrote:
> Hi Baptiste,
> 
> On 7/31/22 13:49, Baptiste Beauplat wrote:
> > Hi Alejandro,
> > 
> > On 2022/07/31 12:35 PM, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> >> The template page 'manpage.1.ex' uses '-' instead of '\-' for a
> >> dash that should be a Latin minus sign (as it's in the context of
> >> command options).  Using '-' would produce a hyphen, which if
> >> copy&pasted, wouldn't be interpreted correctly by a command.
> >>
> >> The offending line in the file is 41:
> >>
> >> options starting with two dashes ('-')
> > 
> > When I run the following command on the manpage :
> > 
> >     man ./manpage.1.ex | xxd
> > 
> > The resulting text from the dash line 41 is converted to the correct 2d
> > minus ascii char.
> > 
> > The same is true for the two examples following that text, which are
> > correctly shown as \-\- in the source.
> > 
> > I am missing something? Or maybe the fact that this text is in a .SH
> > section make it work correctly?
> 
> Upstream groff(1) renders '-' and '\-' differently, as they should.
> However, since many manual pages in existence are incorrect, and they 
> use '-' when they should use '\-', Debian modifies the behavior by 
> downgrading hyphens into Latin minus sign.
> 
> Let's fix the page in the hope that Debian can some day remove that 
> workaround.
> 
> See the relevant part of </etc/groff/man.local>:
> 
> .  \" Debian: Strictly, "-" is a hyphen while "\-" is a minus sign, and the
> .  \" former may not always be rendered in the form expected for things like
> .  \" command-line options.  Uncomment this if you want to make sure that
> .  \" manual pages you're writing are clear of this problem.
> .  if '\*[.T]'utf8' \
> .    char - \[hy]
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Alex
> 
> -- 
> Alejandro Colomar
> Linux man-pages comaintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
> http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/