On 2023-10-15 Wookey <woo...@wookware.org> wrote:
[...]
> OK. So I read all that, and learned a whole load of stuff I was quite
> happy not knowing about.
> However despite reading it all, and especially this bit:
> "Whenever I've maintained man pages in roff I tend to be precise in
> > the usage of - and \-, but TBH this has seemed like a lost battle,"
> I was left not actually know what - and \- represent, nor which one I
> _should_ be using in my man pages. And that seems to be the one thing
> we should be telling the 'average maintainer'.
[...]
Hello,
a pretty good guidance[1] is to
use "\-" whenever it refers to option ("-h", --help"), argument ("find
-mmin -2") or something else that is not natural language but something
that might be pasted, like a command-name ("ssh-add" or "dpkg-source")
and "-" everywhere else.
cu Andreas
[1] Well it is "guidance": pasting will work, but there might still be
places in the prose where a dash would be typographically correct. Some
of these typographical conventions are langauage specific. All this
familiar to LaTeX users.
--
`What a good friend you are to him, Dr. Maturin. His other friends are
so grateful to you.'
`I sew his ears on from time to time, sure'
