On 7/31/20, Peter Schaffter <pe...@schaffter.ca> wrote: > Surely the most useful and accurate way to describe \& is "a > zero-width, non-printing character."
Agreed. A patch that changes the wording to just that is attached. The term in groff(7), "non-printable, zero-width glyph," was already close, but I changed it as well anyway, mostly because \& acts more like an input character (affecting how input is interpreted) than an output glyph.
diff --git a/doc/groff.texi b/doc/groff.texi index 55369e69..0ea1e7bb 100644 --- a/doc/groff.texi +++ b/doc/groff.texi @@ -5141,16 +5141,16 @@ assigning an empty macro to it. @xref{Blank Line Traps}. -@cindex zero width space character (@code{\&}) -@cindex character, zero width space (@code{\&}) -@cindex space character, zero width (@code{\&}) +@cindex zero-width non-printing character (@code{\&}) +@cindex character, zero-width non-printing (@code{\&}) +@cindex non-printing character, zero-width (@code{\&}) @cindex @code{\&}, escaping control characters To begin a line with a control character without it being interpreted, -precede it with @code{\&}. This represents a zero width space, which -means it does not affect the output. +precede it with @code{\&}. This represents a zero-width, non-printing +character, which means it does not affect the output. In most cases the period is used as a control character. Several -requests cause a break implicitly; using the single quote control +requests cause a break implicitly; using the single-quote control character prevents this. @Defreg {.br} @@ -7812,8 +7812,8 @@ set with the @code{shc} request. @item @cindex @code{\&}, and translations The pair @samp{@var{c}\&} (this is an arbitrary character@tie{}@var{c} -followed by the zero width space character) maps this character to -nothing. +followed by the zero-width, non-printing character) maps this character +to nothing. @Example .tr a\& @@ -9881,9 +9881,9 @@ enable pairwise kerning, otherwise disable it. The read-only number register @code{.kern} is set to@tie{}1 if pairwise kerning is enabled, 0@tie{}otherwise. -@cindex zero width space character (@code{\&}) -@cindex character, zero width space (@code{\&}) -@cindex space character, zero width (@code{\&}) +@cindex zero-width non-printing character (@code{\&}) +@cindex character, zero-width non-printing (@code{\&}) +@cindex non-printing character, zero-width (@code{\&}) If the font description file contains pairwise kerning information, glyphs from that font are kerned. Kerning between two glyphs can be inhibited by placing @code{\&} between them: @samp{V\&A}. @@ -11920,9 +11920,9 @@ The optional second parameter@tie{}@var{g} is a glyph to draw the line with. If this second argument is not specified, @code{gtroff} uses the underscore glyph, @code{\[ru]}. -@cindex zero width space character (@code{\&}) -@cindex character, zero width space (@code{\&}) -@cindex space character, zero width (@code{\&}) +@cindex zero-width non-printing character (@code{\&}) +@cindex character, zero-width non-printing (@code{\&}) +@cindex non-printing character, zero-width (@code{\&}) To separate the two arguments (to prevent @code{gtroff} from interpreting a drawing glyph as a scaling indicator if the glyph is represented by a single character) use @code{\&}. diff --git a/man/groff.7.man b/man/groff.7.man index b16f8ad2..c5c8706c 100644 --- a/man/groff.7.man +++ b/man/groff.7.man @@ -3078,7 +3078,7 @@ Digit-width unbreakable space. . .TP .ESC & -Non-printable, zero-width glyph. +Non-printing, zero-width character. . .TP .ESC )