Hi Branden, I never received a copy of <https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2025-08/msg00028.html>. I guess you only sent it to the list? Or maybe it got lost...
Anyway, below goes my updated opinion. See at the bottom.
On Sun, Sep 07, 2025 at 09:05:33AM +0200, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> Hi Branden,
>
> On Sat, Aug 23, 2025 at 10:02:05PM +0200, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> > Hi Branden,
> >
> > I was going to replace some unmatched double quote as argument to a
> > man(7) macro, which was used as a literal double quote in the output, by
> > the more readable (less ambiguous in source code) \[dq].
> >
> > However, I've realized that groff(1) seems to treat them slightly
> > differently. Is this intentional, or a bug?
>
> Ping. Here's a small reproducer:
>
> alx@debian:~/tmp$ cat quote.man
> .TH a s d f
> .SH quote
> There's a weird difference with quotes.
> Here's some
> .BR quote ()?"
> and here's another
> .BR quote ()?\[dq]
> but I don't know.
> Why they don't have the same amount of space after them?
> alx@debian:~/tmp$ mandoc -man -Tutf8 quote.man
> a(s)
> a(s)
>
> quote
> There's a weird difference with quotes. Here's some quote()?"
> and
> here's another quote()?" but I don't know. Why they don't have
> the
> same amount of space after them?
>
> f d
> a(s)
> alx@debian:~/tmp$ diff -u <(mandoc -man -Tutf8 <quote.man) <(sed
> 's/"/\\[dq]/' <quote.man | mandoc -man -Tutf8)
> alx@debian:~/tmp$ groff -man -Tutf8 quote.man
> a(s)
> a(s)
>
> quote
> There's a weird difference with quotes. Here's some
> quote()?" and
> here's another quote()?" but I don't know. Why they don't
> have the
> same amount of space after them?
>
> f d
> a(s)
> alx@debian:~/tmp$ diff -u <(groff -man -Tutf8 <quote.man) <(sed
> 's/"/\\[dq]/' <quote.man | groff -man -Tutf8)
> --- /dev/fd/63 2025-09-07 09:03:51.078805690 +0200
> +++ /dev/fd/62 2025-09-07 09:03:51.082804673 +0200
> @@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
> a(s)
> a(s)
>
> quote
> - There's a weird difference with quotes. Here's some
> quote()?" and
> + There's a weird difference with quotes. Here's some
> quote()?" and
> here's another quote()?" but I don't know. Why they don't
> have the
> same amount of space after them?
>
>
>
> mandoc(1) does the right thing, but groff(1) acts weirdly.
>
> Have a lovely day!
> Alex
>
> >
> > Here are the source-code diff, and the formatted diff:
> >
> > $ git diff;
> > diff --git i/man/man3/cfree.3 w/man/man3/cfree.3
> > index 55008e9a7..1698ab6e3 100644
> > --- i/man/man3/cfree.3
> > +++ w/man/man3/cfree.3
> > @@ -80,7 +80,7 @@ .SS 3-arg cfree
> > to free memory allocated with
> > .BR calloc (3),
> > or do I need
> > -.BR cfree ()?"
> > +.BR cfree ()?\[dq]
> > Answer: use
> > .BR free (3).
> > .P
> >
> >
> > $ MANWIDTH=64 diffman-git;
> > --- HEAD:man/man3/cfree.3
> > +++ ./man/man3/cfree.3
> > @@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ DESCRIPTION
> >
> > A frequently asked question is "Can I use free(3) to
> > free memory allocated with calloc(3), or do I need
> > - cfree()?" Answer: use free(3).
> > + cfree()?" Answer: use free(3).
> >
> > An SCO manual writes: "The cfree routine is provided for
> > compliance to the iBCSe2 standard and simply calls free.
> >
> >
> > I think the behavior with '"' makes more sense than with '\[dq]'. Maybe
> > some conditional within groff(1) checks for '"' but forgets to check for
> > the synonymous '\[dq]'?
I have changed my mind. I think the behavior of mandoc(1), and that of
\[dq], is the one I like.
The '?' within quotation marks does not end the sentence, and is just
part of the quoted text. The enclosing sentence was missing an
end-of-sentence punctuator.
I've fixed that with:
$ git show ddb26eb2011a
commit ddb26eb2011a498ece999aa44e501e0ed7fddb09
Author: Alejandro Colomar <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Sep 7 10:06:47 2025 +0200
man/man3/cfree.3: pfix
Signed-off-by: Alejandro Colomar <[email protected]>
diff --git a/man/man3/cfree.3 b/man/man3/cfree.3
index b117539be..dfa2b5a13 100644
--- a/man/man3/cfree.3
+++ b/man/man3/cfree.3
@@ -81,7 +81,7 @@ .SS 3-arg cfree
to free memory allocated with
.BR calloc (3),
or do I need
-.BR cfree ()?"
+.BR cfree ()?\[dq].
Answer: use
.BR free (3).
.P
Which formats as:
$ MANWIDTH=72 diffman-git ddb26eb2011a
--- ddb26eb2011a^:man/man3/cfree.3
+++ ddb26eb2011a:man/man3/cfree.3
@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ DESCRIPTION
to your file.
A frequently asked question is "Can I use free(3) to free memory
- allocated with calloc(3), or do I need cfree()?" Answer: use
+ allocated with calloc(3), or do I need cfree()?". Answer: use
free(3).
An SCO manual writes: "The cfree routine is provided for compli‐
This is anti-American, I know, but Americans are not reasonable
regarding quoting.
Cheers,
Alex
--
<https://www.alejandro-colomar.es>
Use port 80 (that is, <...:80/>).
signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
