Re: Proposed: QS/QE macros for quotation in man(7)

[G. Branden Robinson]

[self-correcting follow-up]

At 2024-12-18T20:00:53-0600, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> Pro:
> * People may discover that quotation marks are properly available in
>   the man(7) language, a fact that has been obscure for 45 years.
>   (The `\*(lq` and `\*(rq` syntax has been available since day one
>   [1979].  I suspect these failed because man page authors who weren't
>   already practiced in *roff had no idea what a *roff string was, or
>   how to interpolate one, and the elaborate syntax filled them with
>   fear.)

I forgot my own "History" section in groff_man(7).

>> `\*(lq` and `\*(rq` are extensions introduced by 4BSD (1980).

DWB 3.3 picked them up in one of its man(7) macro files ("an.sr") but
not the other ("an").  Solaris 10, a descendant of DWB 2.0, supports
them.  SunOS 4.0.3 does as well but seems mostly to not use them, often
favoring `\(lq` and ``(rq` special character escape sequences (not
recognized by Ossanna troff) instead.  But _both_ are scarce in its
corpus of man pages.

The thing just seems not to have ever really launched in the course of
44 years.

Surely I will succeed where others have failed.

Regards,
Branden

signature.asc
Description: PGP signature