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authorIngo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>2013-12-26 17:23:42 +0000
committerIngo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>2013-12-26 17:23:42 +0000
commitf6563ba0304acecf4e8cb3d3ca84faf6ebeac5d1 (patch)
tree7fca2fbdd41537763a3d4374a2279749efee44ed /mandoc_char.7
parent2c58c78f1263202939348075128cbfaa56a7feb8 (diff)
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Rework the documentation of Spaces, using the Ossanna/Kernighan/Ritter
Heirloom Nroff/Troff User's Manual at the authoritative reference. Part of our text was outright wrong. Also, refrain from advertising the paddable non-breaking space `\~' in the DESCRIPTION, for three reasons: For nroff mode, -Tascii, and fixed width fonts in general, it makes no difference, so keep the discussion simple. Compared to `\ ', '\~' is of questionable portability. And if you want to keep words together, it is also more usual that you don't want padding to intervene either. Finally, drop the `\c' escape sequence (interrupt text processing) which is not a special character but an input processing instruction akin to the \<newline> escape sequence.
Diffstat (limited to 'mandoc_char.7')
-rw-r--r--mandoc_char.744
1 files changed, 22 insertions, 22 deletions
diff --git a/mandoc_char.7 b/mandoc_char.7
index 76065170..8d835665 100644
--- a/mandoc_char.7
+++ b/mandoc_char.7
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-.\" $Id: mandoc_char.7,v 1.55 2013/12/22 13:18:27 schwarze Exp $
+.\" $Id: mandoc_char.7,v 1.56 2013/12/26 17:23:42 schwarze Exp $
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 2003 Jason McIntyre <jmc@openbsd.org>
.\" Copyright (c) 2009, 2010, 2011 Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@bsd.lv>
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@
.\" ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
.\" OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
.\"
-.Dd $Mdocdate: December 22 2013 $
+.Dd $Mdocdate: December 26 2013 $
.Dt MANDOC_CHAR 7
.Os
.Sh NAME
@@ -98,26 +98,27 @@ in literal context, and when none of the following special cases apply,
just use the normal space character
.Pq Sq \ .
.Pp
-When filling text, lines may be broken between words, i.e. at space
+When filling text, output lines may be broken between words, i.e. at space
characters.
To prevent a line break between two particular words,
-use the non-breaking space escape sequence
-.Pq Sq \e~
+use the unpaddable non-breaking space escape sequence
+.Pq Sq \e\ \&
instead of the normal space character.
For example, the input string
-.Dq number\e~1
+.Dq number\e\ 1
will be kept together as
-.Dq number\~1
+.Dq number\ 1
on the same output line.
.Pp
On request and macro lines, the normal space character serves as an
argument delimiter.
-To include whitespace into arguments, quoting is usually the best choice.
-In some cases, using either the non-breaking
-.Pq Sq \e~
-or the breaking
+To include whitespace into arguments, quoting is usually the best choice;
+see the MACRO SYNTAX section in
+.Xr roff 7 .
+In some cases, using the non-breaking space escape sequence
.Pq Sq \e\ \&
-space escape sequence may be preferable.
+may be preferable.
+.Pp
To escape macro names and to protect whitespace at the end
of input lines, the zero-width space
.Pq Sq \e&
@@ -194,14 +195,13 @@ manual.
Spacing:
.Bl -column "Input" "Description" -offset indent -compact
.It Em Input Ta Em Description
-.It \e~ Ta non-breaking, non-collapsing space
-.It \e Ta breaking, non-collapsing n-width space
-.It \e^ Ta zero-width space
-.It \e% Ta zero-width space
+.It Sq \e\ \& Ta unpaddable non-breaking space
+.It \e~ Ta paddable non-breaking space
+.It \e0 Ta unpaddable, breaking digit-width space
+.It \e| Ta one-sixth \e(em narrow space, zero width in nroff mode
+.It \e^ Ta one-twelfth \e(em half-narrow space, zero width in nroff
.It \e& Ta zero-width space
-.It \e| Ta zero-width space
-.It \e0 Ta breaking, non-collapsing digit-width space
-.It \ec Ta removes any trailing space (if applicable)
+.It \e% Ta zero-width space allowing hyphenation
.El
.Pp
Lines:
@@ -661,7 +661,7 @@ The escape sequences
.Pp
are interpreted as Unicode codepoints.
The codepoint must be in the range above U+0080 and less than U+10FFFF.
-For compatibility, the hexadecimal digits
+For compatibility, the hexadecimal digits
.Sq A
to
.Sq F
@@ -735,9 +735,9 @@ The
manual page was written by
.An Kristaps Dzonsons Aq Mt kristaps@bsd.lv .
.Sh CAVEATS
-The
+The predefined string
.Sq \e*(Ba
-escape mimics the behaviour of the
+mimics the behaviour of the
.Sq \&|
character in
.Xr mdoc 7 ;