Re: Smart quotes via finite state machine

[G. Branden Robinson]

Hi onf,

At 2024-09-23T01:02:35+0200, onf wrote:
[...]
> I wondered if perhaps having some minimal context could allow one to
> decide whether the " character is actually a quotation mark or just
> an inch mark, and similarly with '.

It's going to take me some time to absorb the rest of your message, but
for this part, the recommended practice is simple.

A document author should say (type) what they mean.

Some people, such as novice man page authors, expect the keycap
engravings on our keyboards to follow a DWIM ("Do What I Mean")
principle.  That principle does not often apply to Unix or GNU software.
(C is very much not a DWIM programming language, so I find it remarkable
how readily its programmers expect the formatting language of man pages
to be DWIM.)

If you mean a foot mark or inches mark rather than a quotation mark, you
should say so to groff.

The "Units" table in the groff_char(7) man page has these entries.

     Output   Input   Unicode   Notes
     ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
     ′        \[fm]   u2032     arc minute sign, foot mark +
     ″        \[sd]   u2033     arc second sign

Regards,
Branden

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