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

[onf]

Hi Alejandro,

On Fri Dec 20, 2024 at 12:39 AM CET, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> I prefer \[lq] and \[rq] over .QS and .QE.  BTW, that's that '*' mean?

That's string interpolation syntax. From groff(7):

  Strings
    groff supports strings primarily for user convenience.
    Conventionally, if one would define a macro only to interpolate
    a small amount of text, without invoking requests or calling any
    other macros, one defines a string instead.  Only one string is
    predefined by the language.
  
    \*[.T]    Contains the name of the output device (for
              example, “utf8” or “pdf”).
  
    The .ds request creates a string with a specified name and
    contents.

I assume the reason for using the strings `lq` and `rq` instead of
characters of the same name is that the strings can be defined
differently based on the current locale, so that English users get
\[lq] and \[rq] while German users get \[Bq] and \[lq] etc.

~ onf