Re: Extra space after punctuation marks

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Wed, January 17, 1996 at 11:28:24 (+0100), Tom Gordon wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: Extra space after punctuation marks
>
> I am also not happy with Lout's current way of handling spaces, primarily
> because I generate Lout source from SGML files and Lout's approach
> complicates the translation process somewhat.   I would prefer that
> Lout format sentences based on their semantics, rather than the format
> of the input file, i.e.

Hmm....  Interesting.  I've been thinking of doing this too.  I'd like to
be able to conver t from HTML to Lout, for example.

> - multiple spaces within a sentence should be replaced by a single space.

Agreed.

> - The appropriate amount of space between sentence on a line should be
> inserted by Lout automatically.  Just how much is "appropriate" could
> be configurable.  Tastes differ in this regard.

I also agree with this.

>From my understanding of troff's handling of input spaces, it uses
punctuation followed by a double space, or punctuation followed by a
newline, as a means to clearly and properly identify the intended end of
a sentence.

If Lout can use a more intelligent algorithm to discern the intended end
of a sentence, and we combine this with the previous point of ignoring
multiple spaces elsewhere withing sentences, then that's ideal, as it
will suite many input styles, and still do the right thing with output.

-- 
                                                        Greg A. Woods

+1 416 443-1734                 VE3TCP                  robohack!woods
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