Hi Branden, On 2023-07-30 17:45, G. Branden Robinson wrote: > Hi Alex, > > At 2023-07-30T17:35:06+0200, Alejandro Colomar wrote: >> That's the reason to use a non-breaking space over a breaking space. >> However, I'd also like to see justification for using a non-breaking >> space over no space at all. > > Readability. > > Consider the synopsis of groff(1) itself. > > groff [-abcCeEgGijklNpRsStUVXzZ] [-d cs] [-d name=string] > [-D enc] [-f fam] [-F dir] [-I dir] [-K enc] [-L arg] > [-m name] [-M dir] [-n num] [-o list] [-P arg] [-r cn] > [-r reg=expr] [-T dev] [-w name] [-W name] [file ...] > > Pasting into this email, it's stripped of all its formatting, a scenario > we can imagine affects some number of users, especially those confused > by the old overstriking convention and who employ crude tools. > > groff [-abcCeEgGijklNpRsStUVXzZ] [-dcs] [-d name=string] > [-Denc] [-ffam] [-Fdir] [-Idir] [-Kenc] [-Larg] > [-mname] [-Mdir] [-nnum] [-olist] [-Parg] [-rcn] > [-rreg=expr] [-Tdev] [-wname] [-Wname] [file ...] I agree that having a space between an option and its argument improves readability. However, between a positional argument and the ellipsis that marks that it can appear multiple times, I don't think the same reasoning applies; at least not so obviously. I'm referring to [file ...] vs [file...]. Cheers, Alex > > Is that as easy to make sense of? Maybe it is for some people, > especially if they already know that groff doesn't ever use a single > dash as a prefix for a long option name. But there are conventions > other than GNU's. > > xclock [ -help ] [ -analog | -digital ] [ -brief ] [ -chime ] [ -hd > color ] [ -hl color ] [ -update seconds ] [ -strftime format ] [ > -twelve | ‐twentyfour | ‐utime ] [ -padding number ] [ -norender ] [ > -render ] [ -sharp ] [ -face pattern ] > > That actually proves to be a better example of bad formatting than I had > hoped for--look at all those problems! Anyway, an expert can figure out > that "-utime" doesn't refer to an option "-u" that takes a metasyntactic > "time" as an argument. But we shouldn't write man pages only for the > attention of experts. > > Regards, > Branden -- <http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/> GPG key fingerprint: A9348594CE31283A826FBDD8D57633D441E25BB5
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