diff options
author | Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@cvs.openbsd.org> | 2013-12-26 17:23:32 +0000 |
---|---|---|
committer | Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@cvs.openbsd.org> | 2013-12-26 17:23:32 +0000 |
commit | 346be754b26d1e4a0a5dd7eb10e6fd94d842e081 (patch) | |
tree | 3b428c3449c2fe0ccc52a5aacde66ce056599f23 /share/man/man7 | |
parent | 0650e43152416963caa6cf666037d1e130742aad (diff) |
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 'share/man/man7')
-rw-r--r-- | share/man/man7/mandoc_char.7 | 42 |
1 files changed, 21 insertions, 21 deletions
diff --git a/share/man/man7/mandoc_char.7 b/share/man/man7/mandoc_char.7 index 0cbb81dca75..43f1abe6c3d 100644 --- a/share/man/man7/mandoc_char.7 +++ b/share/man/man7/mandoc_char.7 @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -.\" $OpenBSD: mandoc_char.7,v 1.19 2013/11/10 20:17:14 schwarze Exp $ +.\" $OpenBSD: mandoc_char.7,v 1.20 2013/12/26 17:23:31 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: November 10 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: @@ -731,9 +731,9 @@ 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 ; |