> So, a third, compromise solution is:
>
> - On all output devices (utf8, html, dvi, ps) map \- to U+002D in
> fixed-width fonts and to U+2212 in proportional fonts.
Isn't this extremely artificial? Shouldn't we do rather this?
- On all output devices (utf8, html, dvi, ps) map `-' to U+002D in
fixed-width fonts and to U+2010 in proportional fonts.
My reasoning:
. We have to advise manpage writers anyway with changed
instructions, namely, to use a fixed-width font for proper
copy-and-paste support. At the same time, we could say that they
should revert to `-' instead of `\-' which is easier to remember,
and which gives better appearance in the manpage source files.
. I'm quite sure that there are zillions of man pages out there
which still use `-', probably with a fixed-width font. I dare to
say that the probability to find a fixed-width `-' in a wild-life
man page is greater than to find a variable-width `\-' in lines
intended to indicate command-line stuff.
. Moving from `\-' to `-' is quite easy. I think you'll find far
more often
The return value is -1.
than the correct
The return value is \-1
thus a simple, automatic search and replace should give good
results almost immediately. Catching negative numbers with a
regular expression afterwards should be not too time-consuming
afterwards.
Since this is a quite important topic I ask you, Bruno, to forward
this to the appropriate people who might be interested also.
Comments, please!
Werner
