Re: [Groff] : ASCII Minus Sign in man Pages

[Steffen Nurpmeso]

Doug McIlroy <address@hidden> wrote:
 |Originally \(pl and \(mi came from a fixed font (S) while + and \-
 |came from the current font. As I understand your comment, groff
 |has reversed this troff convention. Additionally groff interprets - as
 |a compromise HYPHEN-MINUS.
 |
 |man groff_char, however, tells the original state of affairs.  What is
 |one to believe?

I now think it is better to revert all those per-macro adjustments
altogether and be pure; if people use \- to get "nicer" (smoother
and finer that is) output then pasting from manual is simply
impossible.  Distributions like Debian can then still easily apply
remappings at well-known places and document it in their
guidelines.  And/or the remappings could be covered by
a conditional and a global per-site configuration file can set the
corresponding switch, which macro packages then honour.
I think this will be my distant target.

--steffen
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