Re: opposite of \c?

[G. Branden Robinson]

Hi népéta,

At 2024-09-07T12:14:47+1000, nepeta@canaglie.net wrote:
> is there functionality that acts as the reverse of the \c sequence?
> i'm trying to write macros that surround a block of text in quotes,
> such
> 
> .q(
> wow wow the text is quoted
> .q)
>
> becomes
> 
> 'wow wow the text is quoted'
> 
> (pretend those are fancy quotes)
> 
> the opening macro is just
> \oq\c
> and it works fine, but i can't figure out how to inhibit the
> space for the end quote inside the macro, so it ends up like
> 
> 'wow wow the text is quoted '
> 
> is there an escape or a request that allows for this?

I don't think this is easy to do, the way you're trying to do it.

I would probably define one macro for "inline" quotations and another
for "displayed" ones.  Make the inline one accept arguments.

But what if you _want_ space after the end of the quote, as you likely
will sometimes?  You can put it there with the `\~` escape sequence.

$ cat ATTIC/nepeta.groff
.de Q
\(lq\\$*\(rq\c
..
Hey, look\(em\c
.Q this is quoted
\&.
And stuff after
.Q this
\~is not.
$ nroff ATTIC/nepeta.groff | cat -s
Hey, look——“this is quoted”.  And stuff after “this” is not.


Another approach would be to have Q optionally accept a second argument
for trailing punctuation.  This means you'll need to remember to quote
the first one, if it comprises multiple words.

$ cat ATTIC/nepeta2.groff
.de Q
\(lq\\$1\(rq\\$2
..
Hey, look\(em\c
.Q "this is quoted" .
And stuff after
.Q this
is not.
$ nroff ATTIC/nepeta2.groff | cat -s
Hey, look——“this is quoted”.  And stuff after “this” is not.


Does this help?

Regards,
Branden

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