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Re: [Groff] ASCII Minus Sign in man Pages
From: |
Mike Bianchi |
Subject: |
Re: [Groff] ASCII Minus Sign in man Pages |
Date: |
Thu, 4 May 2017 10:20:43 -0400 |
User-agent: |
Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) |
On Thu, May 04, 2017 at 11:30:20AM +0100, Ralph Corderoy wrote:
> > > But - has always meant hyphen in pre-groff troff because it's a lot
> > > more common to want a hyphen in writing than a minus sign.
> >
> > _I_ would claim this interpretation was a mistake.
>
> Well, 7th Ed. documents that have `.if n' and `.if t' use - for an
> English hyphen and \- for a numeric minus, e.g.
> :
Just to be clear, I am _not_ saying that wasn't how it was documented and
implemented. I am just saying that it has made the world more complicated than
_I_ would like. Typing \(hy for hyphen would have been a heavy burden,
especially in the absence of the .char groff extension.
Probably the best solution available now is fixing any incorrect documentation
so as to speak truth.
--
Mike Bianchi
Re: [Groff] ASCII Minus Sign in man Pages, Steffen Nurpmeso, 2017/05/03