Uwe Stöhr <[email protected]> writes:

>> --- is not a command in TeX, it is a ligature.
>
> This is not correct, neither the Unicode standard nor typographic
> books know a ligature of dashes, see also
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographic_ligature

-- and -- are implemented in TeX as ligatures in the font, as are ?`,
!`, `` and ''.

> mdash and ndash are characters of its own. "---" and "--" are LaTeX
> commands creating these characters. 

If by command, you mean 'macros' this is wrong. The - character is not
active and thus it cannot trigger a macro. The actual coding is done in
the font itself. 

JMarc

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