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

[Alejandro Colomar]

Hi onf,

On Fri, Dec 20, 2024 at 02:21:00AM +0100, onf wrote:
> 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.

Ahhh, thanks!

Cheers,
Alex

> 
> ~ onf

-- 
<https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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