Re: nonbreaking spaces (was: [patch] nscd.conf.5: describe reloading, clarifications)

["G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>]

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Hi, Alex!

At 2021-07-29T14:18:30+0200, Alejandro Colomar (man-pages) wrote:
> On 7/29/21 1:55 PM, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> Can you provide some examples of rendered output with '\ ' and '\~'?
> I think I understand it, but a graphical example might be better.

Sure.  Here you go.

[[
demo(1)                     General Commands Manual                    demo(1)

Name
       demo - an illustration

Description
       Observe  the  distinction  between the handling of the “\ ” (backslash-
       space) and \^ (backslash-tilde) escapes.

       Today I was troubleshooting a segmentation fault and  had  occasion  to
       run    the    “ps -fC troff”    command.     I    also   had   to   run
       “gdb  ./build/troff  ./build/core”.   Here  is  some   filler:   XXXXXX
       Mandatory  for  this  illustration  is the filling and adjusting of the
       previous line.

nonce 1.0                         2021-07-29                           demo(1)
]]

In the foregoing, the spaces in "ps -fC troff" do not participate in
adjustment, which leads to somewhat jarringly large inter-word gaps on
the rest of the line.

> > It's also, in my opinion, confusing to see and to write and speak
> > about.
> 
> I'm not sure I understood this sentence :)

I mean that it "\ " can be difficult to recognize in practice; you
_have_ to quote it or describe it somehow or the syntactically
significant space (to roff) gets lots among the regular word-separating
spaces in prose.

> I'm not sure I understood the difference completely, I'll comment
> about it when you provide some examples.

Sure.  I hope the above helps.  Here's the source of the example.

.TH demo 1 2021-07-29 "nonce 1.0"
.SH Name
demo \- an illustration
.SH Description
Observe the distinction between the handling of the
.RB \[lq] \[rs]\~ \[rq]
(backslash-space) and
.B \[rs]\[ha]
(backslash-tilde) escapes.
.P
Today I was troubleshooting a segmentation fault and had occasion to run
the
.RB \[lq] ps\ -fC\ troff \[rq]
command.
I also had to run
.RB \[lq] gdb\~./build/troff\~./build/core \[rq].
.
Here is some filler:
XXXXXX
\%Mandatory for this illustration is the filling and adjusting of the
previous line.

Regards,
Branden

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