Re: undecipherable (wrong?) text on def* arguments and --

[Patrice Dumas]

On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 11:05:08PM +0000, Karl Berry wrote:
> 
> In the first case, the -- turns into an en-dash.  This happens at a low
> level in TeX and defeating it in general would have all kinds of
> undesirable ramifications.

Ok.  I was under the impression that -- in @def* line were always two
dashes and not an en-dash.  It is how it is in texi2any, indeed.  What
you are saying is that it is not possible to have --, ---, `` and '' 
kept as is if the font do not look like a typewriter font?

> In the second case, putting @var around the -- makes it possible for
> texinfo.tex to disable the "ligature" reasonable.  The output is in
> slanted typewriter, not just typewriter.  This is desirable in principle
> over @code because the arguments in general are typeset in slanted, not
> code. 

Ok, I see.  What is very weird, here, is that @var{} leads to
typewriter, while it does not in any other context.

> I realize none of this is logical or Texinfo-like but I see no help for
> it.  The extra <var> or whatever in the other formats doesn't actually
> hurt anything (aside from being illogical), does it?

I checked the output it looks fine in firefox -- although different from
TeX, since @var is never typewriter in html.

-- 
Pat