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

["Alejandro Colomar (man-pages)" <alx.manpages@gmail.com>]

On 7/29/21 3:58 PM, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> 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.

I guess \^ is just a typo and you meant here \~.

> 
>         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)
> ]]

Yes, that's what I thought you were saying.  Thanks for confirming.

> 
> 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.

Got it now.

> 
>> 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.

Yes.  Well, before seeing the example above, I thought that I preferred 
having a single space inside commands, as then the command itself is a 
bit more readable.  But since that slight increase in readability can 
come with a considerable decrease in readability of the surrounding 
text, I'm going to accept your proposal.

Would you mind sending a patch for man-pages(7)? :)

Thanks!

Alex

> 
> .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
> 


-- 
Alejandro Colomar
Linux man-pages comaintainer; https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/