Thanks for the fix. We should get the "check-all-manpages" check to run with syntax-checks. I'd prefer \[dq]\[dq] over the single-quote option, because although I am aware that groff renders a "single quote" in different ways in different circumstances, I'm not familiar enough with the details to be confident that \*' won't ever give a surprising result.
James. On Wed, Jul 8, 2026 at 9:29 PM Bernhard Voelker <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi James, > > I like all the recent manpage improvements, thanks! > > On 7/8/26 10:09, James Youngman wrote: > > On Tue, Jul 7, 2026 at 7:56 AM Bernhard Voelker > > <[email protected]> wrote: > >> man swallows the "" as an empty second argumment to .B syntax. > >> I propose using the following instead: > >> > >> .B \-E \*(lq\*(rq > > > > Thanks for spotting the problem. I actually used \[dq]\[dq] so that > > people can copy the text from the manpage (i.e. the output of "man > > xargs") into a shell script and get the intended effect. > > Good point! > > BTW: Looking into the STANDARDS CONFORMANCE section, we have already -E '' > with: > .B \-E \*'\*' > Would you prefer single-quotes over double-quotes here for consistency? > > > I've pushed the attached trivial patch to avoid 'make check-all-manpages' > errors. > > Have a nice day, > Berny >
