Re: .Li hiccup (and \*(Pu issue)

[Jason McIntyre <jmc@kerhand.co.uk>]

On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 01:28:18AM +0200, Ingo Schwarze wrote:
> > 
> > % egrep 'Li [:.;] ' `cat manuals.txt `
> > usr.sbin/bgpd/bgpd.conf.5:.Ar as-number Ns Li : Ns Ar local ,
> 
> Cargo-cult alert:  Why not just
> 
>   .Ar as-number : Ns Ar local ,
> 
> That seems to work with all our formatters, and i don't see why
> it shouldn't work, or why we should put any more macros in there.
> 

well, my reading of that example would be the author wants `:' in a
literal font. but after reading your mail, i'm not sure whether you
think that should be the result or not.

that is, i don;t know whether you think i should change the expr.1
example and the \*(Pu example, or whether you think mandoc itself should
be changed. can you clarify this please? (then if it's a mandoc change,
i can bow out of the discussion ;)

but getting back to your example, no matter what was intended, i'd say
that your example without Li is much better anyway. Li is a colossal
waste of space.

> 
> That said, i think
> 
>   .Ar expr1 No : Ar expr2
> 
> is easier to understand and might look better in variable-width
> output - of course, it is currently broken in the same way as
> in the .Li, .Fl and .Ar cases, the empty .No is missing from
> the syntax tree just like the other ones.
> 

i think the No is needless here too.

jmc
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