Re: mdocml's .Ql doesn't map to original and GNU mdoc(7)

[Steffen Nurpmeso <sdaoden@yandex.com>]

Hallo Ingo,

Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@usta.de> wrote:
 |Steffen Nurpmeso wrote on Mon, Dec 29, 2014 at 01:17:46PM +0100:
 |> mdocml's mdoc.7 says
 |> 
 |>   Ql  single-quoted literal text: `text'
 |> 
 |> but that is not what .Ql is about:
 |> 
 |>   .Ql   The quoted literal macro behaves differently in troff
 |>         and nroff mode.[.]

 |> The behaviour is already device-dependent in "old -mdoc", before
 |> 1991-03-07.
 |
 |The .Ql macro is physical markup, so it is rarely used in modern
 |mdoc(7) documents.  Actually, i wouldn't know what purpose to
 |recommend it for, at all.
 |
 |For terminal output, precise output compatibility with groff
 |matters.  For other output modes, not so much.  For a rather

Yes.., but.., please consider the following.
The problem i (actually) have (had) with this is (that) mdocml's
mdoc.7 is installed in place of the "upstream" version (in fact
even overwriting it if you don't be careful) and can be expected
to increasingly become _the_ source of information on mdoc(7),
except maybe in some hardcore GNU places.  As such it spreads
false information, which will bite the unaware: i maybe was only
the first in a long long line of misleaded persons.

 |obscure legacy macro such as .Ql, even less.  So i'd rather
 |keep output consistent across devices instead of emulating
 |historical behaviour.  Besides, PostScript and PDF output have
 |much worse formatting issues than this.  Even for HTML output,
 |there are more interesting things to do.
 |
 |> (Without history i'm guessing, but maybe mdocml was
 |> ment for TTY only at first glance,
 |
 |Not quite, the original motivation for mdoc*ML* was HTML output,
 |and for the first three months of development, HTML was the
 |only output mode.  Kristaps only started coding terminal output
 |on February 20, 2009.

Ah.  I didn't know that.  (I only once have seen Kristaps'
i guess initial announcement of mdocml in the groff list
archives.)

 |> in which case the above is absolutely correct, but it lost that
 |> property once more output formats where added?)
 |
 |No, that's not what happened.

Well, wild guess leading to nowhere.

How about something as simple as the following, giving some
indication that there may be portability issues?

diff --git a/mdoc.7 b/mdoc.7
index c2ac5aa..cdc92a3 100644
--- a/mdoc.7
+++ b/mdoc.7
@@ -528,7 +528,7 @@ in the alphabetical
 .It Sx \&Dq , \&Do , \&Dc Ta enclose in typographic double quotes: Dq text
 .It Sx \&Qq , \&Qo , \&Qc Ta enclose in typewriter double quotes: Qq text
 .It Sx \&Sq , \&So , \&Sc Ta enclose in single quotes: Sq text
-.It Sx \&Ql Ta single-quoted literal text: Ql text
+.It Sx \&Ql Ta format quoted literal text: Ql text
 .It Sx \&Pq , \&Po , \&Pc Ta enclose in parentheses: Pq text
 .It Sx \&Bq , \&Bo , \&Bc Ta enclose in square brackets: Bq text
 .It Sx \&Brq , \&Bro , \&Brc Ta enclose in curly braces: Brq text
@@ -2201,7 +2201,10 @@ See also
 Close quoted context opened by
 .Sx \&Qo .
 .Ss \&Ql
-Format a single-quoted literal.
+Format a quoted literal.
+In
+.Xr mandoc 1
+the arguments are always enclosed in single-quotes.
 See also
 .Sx \&Qq
 and
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