Follow-up Comment #11, bug #58962 (project groff): Some history, if anyone is interested:
Commit b04d345e <http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/commit/?id=b04d345e> (which -- dating from September 1992 and reconstructed without granular change control -- encompasses hundreds of edits, so is not very useful as a specific reference point) added this text to groff_char(7): "The ISO Latin-1 no-break space (code 0240 octal) is equivalent to \(space)." This claim survived (though the wording evolved) in groff_char(7) until 2003, when commit 48615a44 <http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/commit/?id=48615a44> changed "the ISO Latin-1 no-break space is mapped to `\ ', the escaped space character" to "the ISO Latin-1 no-break space is mapped to `\~', the stretchable space character." This commit made sweeping changes to groff_char(7), and also affected a couple other files, so nothing about this one particular change stands out. But the commit included no concomitant code change that would alter this mapping, so Werner seemingly thought groff was already handling Latin-1 character 160 in this manner. The claim remains in groff_char(7) to the present day, when Branden's just-referenced commit f9fb11f6 <http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/commit/?id=f9fb11f6> made it true. The code changes are harder to trace, in part because, as comment #7 mentions, no code was specifically handling this case. But that massive September 1992 commit does include a couple of ChangeLog entries of note (though again, with limited commit history from the time period, no way to map either of these to specific code changes). Tue May 5 10:58:39 1992 James Clark (jjc at jclark) * troff/input.c (init_charset_table): Translate 0240 to an unbreakable space. Mon Jun 8 11:43:20 1992 James Clark (jjc@jclark) * troff/input.c (init_charset_table): Don't translate 0240. * ps/tmac.ps: Translate char160 to space. * dvi/tmac.dvi: Likewise. * tty/tmac.tty: Likewise. So it seems the Latin-1 no-break space was briefly handled in C++ code before being hustled off to tmac files. Today it comes full circle and makes it triumphant return to input.cpp. _______________________________________________________ Reply to this item at: <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?58962> _______________________________________________ Message sent via Savannah https://savannah.gnu.org/
