At 2020-10-03T09:10:14+0200, Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) wrote: > On 10/2/20 10:27 PM, Alejandro Colomar wrote: > > On 2020-10-02 22:14, Paul Eggert wrote: > > > On 10/2/20 11:38 AM, Alejandro Colomar wrote: > > > > > >> .I void * > > >> > > >> renders with a space in between. > > > > > > That's odd, as "man(7)" says "All of the arguments will be > > > printed next to each other without intervening spaces". I'd play > > > it safe and quote the arg anyway. > > > > Oops, that's a bug in man(7). Don't worry about it. > > I'm not sure where that text in man(7) comes from. However, for > clarity I would normally also use quotes in this case. > > > Michael, you might want to have a look at it. > > > > I'll also add Branden, who might have something to say about it. > > Yes, maybe Branden can add some insight. The "short" answer[1] is that I think Alex is correct; Paul's caution is unwarranted and arises from confusion with the font alternation macros of the man(7) macro package. Examples of the latter are .BI and .BR. Those set their even-numbered arguments in one font and odd-numbered arguments in another, with no space between them. That suppression of space is the reason they exist. With the "single-font" macros like .B and .I[2], if you don't want space, don't type it. I could say more, including an annotated explanation of the groff and Version 7 Unix man(7) implementations of the I macro, if desired. :) Regards, Branden [1] since as everyone knows, I struggle with brevity [2] I (and others) discourage use of .SM and .SB because they can't be distinguished from ordinary roman and bold type, respectively, on terminals.
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