Re: [Groff] hyphen vs. minus sign

[Werner LEMBERG]

> So, a third, compromise solution is:
> 
>   - On all output devices (utf8, html, dvi, ps) map \- to U+002D in
>     fixed-width fonts and to U+2212 in proportional fonts.

Isn't this extremely artificial?  Shouldn't we do rather this?

  - On all output devices (utf8, html, dvi, ps) map `-' to U+002D in
    fixed-width fonts and to U+2010 in proportional fonts.

My reasoning:

  . We have to advise manpage writers anyway with changed
    instructions, namely, to use a fixed-width font for proper
    copy-and-paste support.  At the same time, we could say that they
    should revert to `-' instead of `\-' which is easier to remember,
    and which gives better appearance in the manpage source files.

  . I'm quite sure that there are zillions of man pages out there
    which still use `-', probably with a fixed-width font.  I dare to
    say that the probability to find a fixed-width `-' in a wild-life
    man page is greater than to find a variable-width `\-' in lines
    intended to indicate command-line stuff.

  . Moving from `\-' to `-' is quite easy.  I think you'll find far
    more often

      The return value is -1.

    than the correct

      The return value is \-1

    thus a simple, automatic search and replace should give good
    results almost immediately.  Catching negative numbers with a
    regular expression afterwards should be not too time-consuming
    afterwards.

Since this is a quite important topic I ask you, Bruno, to forward
this to the appropriate people who might be interested also.

Comments, please!


       Werner