Re: [PATCH] Re: c47b535bb origin/main org-element: Remove dependency on ‘org-emphasis-regexp-components’

[Ihor Radchenko]

Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr> writes:

> Thanks for the update, and apologies in advance for being bold, as
> I have some additional comments about it.

Constructive critics and suggestions are always welcome. And we do not
have pressing deadlines here :)

>> * doc/org-manual.org (Emphasis and Monospace): Advice users to insert
>> zero width space when Org does not parse emphasized text correctly.
>
> Org _does_ parse emphasized text correctly. It may be seen as
> unintuitive, but it's really a fontification problem. Anyway, this is
> just a commit message…

Agree. It just that the example in the patch _feels_ wrong considering
intuitive definition of verbatim borrowed from LaTeX.

Commit messages are also important, especially years later. I updated
the commit message in the attached new version of the patch.

> Thinking about it a bit more, you might be right: we may slightly change
> the closing part of the emphasis regexp, e.g.:
>
>   (seq
>    (not space)
>    (group ,mark)
>    (or (any space ?- ?')
>        (and (any ?. ?, ?\; ?: ?! ?? ?\" ?\) ?\} ?\\ ?\[) (or space line-end))
>        line-end))
>
> The logic behind this is that in regular text, we assume usual
> punctuation rules apply.

This will fail for "*Bold*?!" or "/Italics/!!!"

Also, is there any reason why we are not simply using punctuation
character class instead of listing punctuation chars explicitly (and
only for English)? What about "_你叫什么名字_？"

Maybe just

(seq
 (not space)
 (group ,mark)
 (0+ (in punctuation))
 (or space line-end))

> My concern is that the more complicated is the rule, the more difficult
> it is to predict. Also, we introduce new corner case, e.g.,
>
>   Woot! I just released Org *10*.0!
>
> So, I'm not totally convinced it is worth the trouble.

I am not sure if "Org *10*.0" is a good general example. It is probably
one of those cases when users want fine control over emphasis and must
use zero width space.

Best,
Ihor

>From 9ad522e8d1f1184ef097611fc30b326b08d5b432 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
Message-Id: 
<9ad522e8d1f1184ef097611fc30b326b08d5b432.1637486504.git.yantar92@gmail.com>
From: Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2021 19:27:56 +0800
Subject: [PATCH] org-manual.org: Clarify how to handle markup ambiguity

* doc/org-manual.org (Emphasis and Monospace): Advice users to insert
zero width space to force Org ignore emphasis markers.
---
 doc/org-manual.org | 12 ++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 12 insertions(+)

diff --git a/doc/org-manual.org b/doc/org-manual.org
index 1d0213934..19f42fc77 100644
--- a/doc/org-manual.org
+++ b/doc/org-manual.org
@@ -10818,6 +10818,18 @@ ** Emphasis and Monospace
 ~org-fontify-emphasized-text~ to ~nil~.  To narrow down the list of
 available markup syntax, you can customize ~org-emphasis-alist~.
 
+Sometimes, when marked text also contains the marker character itself,
+the result may be unsettling.  For example,
+
+#+begin_example
+/One may expect this whole sentence to be italicized, but the
+following ~user/?variable~ contains =/= character, which effectively
+stops emphasis there./
+#+end_example
+
+You can use zero width space to help Org sorting out the ambiguity.
+See [[*Escape Character]] for more details.
+
 ** Subscripts and Superscripts
 :PROPERTIES:
 :DESCRIPTION: Simple syntax for raising/lowering text.
-- 
2.32.0