Re: man-pages and usage() howto

["Benno Schulenberg" <bensberg@justemail.net>]

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On Tue, 23 Aug 2011 10:15 +0200, "Sami Kerola" <kerolasa@iki.fi> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 22:38, Benno Schulenberg <bensberg@justemail.net> wrote:
> > (I do not understand your comment about some macros not being
> > visually different from plain .B or .I.)
> 
> Either my term, groff or pager is/are broken, or I have wooden eyes or
> the different highlights do not stand out, see yourself:
> 
> http://ut3.org/~kerolasa/groff-highlight.png
> 
> What I tried to say; Do not get fooled that different macros will look
> different so that you can refer visually in between different text
> elements.

Hmm, maybe you misunderstand what for example the .BI macro does?
It does not mean "bold _plus_ italic" but "alternate bold and italic".  And it
does that perfectly.  See for example the attached example file.

> > Another thing: the man page formatter itself puts a double space after a
> > period when in the man page source the next sentence begins on a new
> > line.  So when in the source a new sentence begins somewhere midline,
> > it should use a double space before its initial letter.
> 
> Are you sure it does that?

Yes, it does that here, on Ubuntu Lucid 10.10, with man 2.5.7.

> See the screenshot notes section third
> paragraph line two, words `macros. See' has only single space in
> between them.

Yes, but in the source it says "appropriate groff macros. See" on a single
line.  When you put the "See" on a line by itself, you wil see two spaces
appear before it.  See the attached example file.

> Even there would be two spaces I do not agree that groff
> input writer should imitate output. It should be enough that words and
> sentences are white space separated, groff will take care the rest.

Well, being a doublespacer myself, I notice it when some sentences are
single-spaced and others double; it irks.  But never mind.

Regards,

Benno

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.TH JUNK 1 "Today" "Example" "Spaciousness"
.SH NAME
junk \- do nothing
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B junk
does nothing.
Just show.
That.
After.
.PP
Each period.
Plus newline.
Follow two spaces.
.SH FORMATTING
.PP
.BR \.BR\  alternate\  bold\  and\  normal\  and\  so\  on\  and\  so\  on
.PP
.BI \.BI\  alternate\  bold\  and\  italic
.PP
.IB \.IB\  alternate\  italic\  and\  bold
.PP
.IR \.IR\  alternate\  italic\  and\  normal
.PP
.RB \.RB\  alternate\  normal\  and\  bold
.PP
.RI \.RI\  alternate\  normal\  and\  italic\  and\  so\  on\  and\  so\  on