Inconsistent sentence spacing

Inconsistent sentence spacing

[Paul Onyschuk]

Sub-section "Sentence Spacing" in mdoc(7) is a bit enigmatic for me.

With following example from manual page: 

> .Xr mandoc 1 .
> .Fl T Ns Cm ascii .

Output looks like this:

> mandoc(1).  -Tascii.

There isn't trailing space at end of the line, so I'm not sure where
double whitespace cames from. Morover changing period to comma will
give only one space:

> .Xr mandoc 1 ,
> .Fl T Ns Cm ascii . 

Output:

> mandoc(1), -Tascii.

Shouldn't first example behave same as:

> .Xr mandoc 1 . No Fl T Ns Cm ascii .

which gives also one whitespace?

Same (double whitespace) comes with exclamation and question marks. Is
that intended behavior?

-- 
Paul Onyschuk <blink@bojary.koba.pl>
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Re: Inconsistent sentence spacing

[Ingo Schwarze]

Hi Paul,

Paul Onyschuk wrote on Sun, Jul 03, 2011 at 05:57:40PM +0200:

> Sub-section "Sentence Spacing" in mdoc(7) is a bit enigmatic for me.

Admittedly, inter-sentence spacing is complicated (and still somewhat
buggy).

> With following example from manual page: 
>
>> .Xr mandoc 1 .
>> .Fl T Ns Cm ascii .
>
> Output looks like this:
> 
>> mandoc(1).  -Tascii.
> 
> There isn't trailing space at end of the line,

Right.  We hardly ever want trailing whitespace, neither in input
nor in output.

> so I'm not sure where double whitespace cames from.

A period at the end of line is interpreted as a full stop,
even on a macro line, and after a full stop, we want extra
spacing.

> Morover changing period to comma will give only one space:
> 
>> .Xr mandoc 1 ,
>> .Fl T Ns Cm ascii . 
> 
> Output:
> 
>> mandoc(1), -Tascii.

Yes, a comma does not end a sentence.

> Shouldn't first example behave same as:
> 
>> .Xr mandoc 1 . No Fl T Ns Cm ascii .
> 
> which gives also one whitespace?

No, because that period isn't at the end of a line.
Consider:

  I beg to differ.
  Fruits vary, e.g. apples and oranges.

Those are two sentences, not three.

> Same (double whitespace) comes with exclamation and question marks.
> Is that intended behavior?

Yes, ".!?" are intended to all behave in the same way,
see function mandoc_eos() in mandoc.c.

Yours,
  Ingo
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Re: Inconsistent sentence spacing

[Paul Onyschuk]

On Sun, 3 Jul 2011 18:21:22 +0200
Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@usta.de> wrote:

> 
> A period at the end of line is interpreted as a full stop,
> even on a macro line, and after a full stop, we want extra
> spacing.
> 

I educated myself on sentance spacing [1] and it was complete
misunderstanding on my side. ASCII output uses double spacing for
sentences.

I didn't catch this, because I'm so used to so called French spacing
(single space between sentences).

Apologies for bothering you with silly questions - me dummy...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing

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Paul Onyschuk <blink@bojary.koba.pl>
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