On Sat, Jul 02, 2016 at 09:06:57AM +0100, Colin Watson wrote: > On Fri, Jul 01, 2016 at 10:57:45PM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote: > > On Fri, 15 May 2015 22:15:14 +0200 Jakub Wilk <jw...@debian.org> wrote: > > > Yeah, these days even upstream groff renders both - and \- as > > > HYPHEN-MINUS. > > > > However, this doesn't appear true with current groff when rendering to > > HTML. "man -H" (or "man -Thtml") passes "-" through as "-", but renders > > "\-" as "−", which browsers typically render as U+2122. > > I think that's simply a bug in groff and should be reported as such. > (To fix it, we could for example adjust \- specifically when rendering > man/mdoc output to HTML.)
Reported as a bug; thanks. > > As far as I can tell, manpages should never use "\-" at all unless they > > actually want a mathematical minus sign (or in the one line in the NAME > > section between the program name and description, as whatis and apropos > > apparently require that). (For manpages that want an em-dash, use the > > four-character sequence "\(em".) > > > > Any time a manpage wants "the dash corresponding to the key '-' on the > > keyboard", which includes any text the user would type on the keyboard > > using that key such as an --option or command-name, the manpage should > > just use "-". > > That's specifically contrary to upstream's consistent typographical > advice over the years, and your suggested advice has its own problems > such as inappropriate line-breaks due to hyphenation. I don't mind that > we've dropped the lintian check nowadays, but please don't reverse it. I only made that suggestion on the assumption that groff's HTML rendering behavior was working as designed and intended; if it's a bug, then please disregard that. - Josh Triplett
