> > What about "input escape"
Copy+pasta from my earlier post <https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2022-06/msg00035.html> to a concurrent discussion in another thread: s/input escape/control suppressor/gi s/input escape/command suppressor/gi (This discussion appears to have been split between ˜3–4 other threads <https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2022-06/threads.html#00004>, so I'm unsure which to reply to…) On Mon, 6 Jun 2022 at 15:55, Ingo Schwarze <schwa...@usta.de> wrote: > Hi, > > DJ Chase wrote on Sun, Jun 05, 2022 at 09:57:45PM +0000: > > On Sun Jun 5, 2022 at 1:09 PM EDT, Ingo Schwarze wrote: > >> Richard Morse wrote: > > >>> How about "non-breaking escape" > > >> That's much too broad since most escape sequences are non-breaking. > > >>> or "non-printing escape" (not necessarily in that order of preference)? > > >> That's also too broad for my taste; here are a few more escape > >> sequences that are non-printing and non-breaking unless i'm > >> missing something: \{ \} \F \f \H \k \M \m \R \S \s \z > >> The difference between \& and the others is that \& is a no-op > >> whereas the others all have some side effect. > > > What about "input escape", > > I wouldn't consider that helpful terminology. > I would define the term "escape sequence" as "a sequence of > input characters starting with the escape character, which is the > backslash by default." Usually, every escape sequence is intended > to directly or indirectly affect output, just like any other roff > input including text lines, requests and macros. In that sense, > every escape sequence is both an "input escape" and and "output > escape": Input and output are merely two complimentary aspects of > the behaviour of any escape sequence. Even using \& usually intends > to influence output, for example suppress end-of-sentence spacing, > kerning, or ligature building. So it is hardly more focussed on > the input side than other escape sequences. > > > possibly with a comparing it to the intended > > purpose of the ASCII escape character? > > I dislike that idea, too. When i consider terminal control codes > or the use of the escape key in emacs(1) as examples, it seems > to me that the ASCII escape character compares more readily to > the roff(7) escape character (by default the backslash) than to > a complete escape sequence like "\&". Even if you disregard that > aspect, the \& escape sequence significantly differs from the > ASCII escape character in two important aspects: it is often placed > *after* the thing it is meant to escape rather than before, and > while the ASCII escape character often gives special meaning to > ordinary characters, \& does about the opposite: It takes away > the special meaning that an input character (like '.') intrinsically > has and turns it into an ordinary character, makes it behave like > any other character that has no special meaning. > > Yours, > Ingo > >
