gnu/154822: groff_mdoc UTF-8 issue

Dominic Fandrey kamikaze at bsdforen.de
Wed Feb 16 14:40:10 UTC 2011


>Number:         154822
>Category:       gnu
>Synopsis:       groff_mdoc UTF-8 issue
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-bugs
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          change-request
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Wed Feb 16 14:40:09 UTC 2011
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Dominic Fandrey
>Release:        RELENG_8
>Organization:
private
>Environment:
FreeBSD mobileKamikaze.norad 8.2-PRERELEASE FreeBSD 8.2-PRERELEASE #0: Tue Feb  8 15:38:58 CET 2011     root at mobileKamikaze.norad:/usr/obj/HP6510b-8/amd64/usr/src/sys/HP6510b-8  amd64

>Description:
The Aq macro of the doc definition, see groff_mdoc(7), encloses e-mail addresses with angle brackets, like <kamikaze at bsdforen.de>.

With a UTF-8 locale like en_GB.UTF-8, it uses a less wide, em-high set of angle brackets for this.
While technically correct two issues turn this into a problem. Many fonts do not define that character, resulting in broken output in your terminal emulator of choice. The second problem is that e-mail programs do not recognize the character as an angle bracket.

The ASCII compatible <> are understood by e-mail programs, allowing simple copy'n'paste(TM) from manual pages, which is no longer possible when using different angle bracket characters.
>How-To-Repeat:
env LANG=C man geom
env LANG=en_US.UTF-8 geom

Jump to the AUTHORS section.
>Fix:
I propose changing the specification of the Aq macro, not very elegant, but it works.

Patch attached with submission follows:

--- contrib/groff/tmac/doc.tmac.orig	2011-02-16 14:31:28.000000000 +0100
+++ contrib/groff/tmac/doc.tmac	2011-02-16 14:32:15.000000000 +0100
@@ -1197,8 +1197,8 @@
 .  if !\n[doc-arg-limit] \
 .    ds doc-macro-name Aq
 .
-.  ds doc-quote-left \[la]
-.  ds doc-quote-right \[ra]
+.  ds doc-quote-left <
+.  ds doc-quote-right >
 .
 .  doc-enclose-string \$@
 ..


>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted:


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