\- vs - (Was [Re: [PATCH 2/3] system_data_types.7: Add 'clock_t'])

[Alejandro Colomar <colomar.6.4.3@gmail.com>]

On 2020-10-18 07:56, Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) wrote:
> Hi Alex,
> 
> On 10/17/20 11:37 PM, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
>> Signed-off-by: Alejandro Colomar <colomar.6.4.3@gmail.com>
>> ---
>>
>> Hi Michael,
>>
>> Does that dash (in "real-floating") need to be escaped?
> 
> No.
> 
>> In my terminal I see it correctly,
>> but I've seen you escaping some of them and don't know the reason why.
> 
> See man-pages(7):
> 
>     Real minus character
>         Where a real minus character is required (e.g., for  numbers  such
>         as  -1,  for  man  page cross references such as utf-8(7), or when
>         writing options that have a leading dash, such as in  ls -l),  use
>         the following form in the man page source:
> 
>             \-
> 
>         This guideline applies also to code examples.
> 
> The point is that a real-minux sign is needed to that code snippets
> can be cut and pasted.
> 
>> Should they be escaped always, or is it only sometimes, and when?
> 
> In normal text, no escape is needed.


Hi Michael,

Then, in the following code (taken from printf.3)
the escape is wrong (unneeded) by those guidelines?:

[[
.SH NAME
printf, fprintf, dprintf, sprintf, snprintf, vprintf, vfprintf, vdprintf,
vsprintf, vsnprintf \- formatted output conversion
]]

Thanks,

Alex