On Wed, Feb 4, 2026 at 3:23 PM Dr Bean via Cygwin <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Wed, 04 Feb 2026, Brian Inglis via Cygwin wrote: > > > On 2026-02-04 12:03, Thomas Wolff via Cygwin wrote: > > > Am 04.02.2026 um 18:10 schrieb Brian Inglis via Cygwin: > > > > On 2026-02-04 02:56, Vincent via Cygwin wrote: > > > > > My request is related to an issue I opened in the FLAC Github : > > > > > https://github.com/xiph/flac/issues/861 > > > > > > After some investigations, the issue is related to the build release > > > > > of the > > > > > FLAC package provided by Cygwin : the man pages of flac(1) and > > > > > metaflac(1) > > > > > use the HYPHEN (U+2010 ) character instead of the HYPHEN-MINUS > > > > > (U+002D) > > > > > character. > > > > > > These two commands expect HYPHEN-MINUS character, so if you > > > > > copy-paste the > > > > > man page options in your terminal, it will fail. > > > > > > Example : flac ‐‐version > > > > > will return an error : « can't open input file ‐‐version: No such > > > > > file or > > > > > directory », because of « ‐‐version » with HYPHEN copied-pasted from > > > > > the > > > > > man pages. > > > > > > The right string is « --version » with HYPHEN-MINUS (U+002D). > > > > > > Example : flac --version > > > > > will return : « flac 1.5.0 » > > > > > > Please, feel free to read the issue in Github ( > > > > > https://github.com/xiph/flac/issues/861 ) for more details, as it's > > > > > easier > > > > > to read code and quotes with the markdown formatting. > > > > > > This is a very pretty nasty kind of bug, because it's very difficult > > > > > to > > > > > distinguish HYPHEN-MINUS and HYPHEN in a terminal. It's also very > > > > > difficult > > > > > to figure out why the command has failed, as the « No such file or > > > > > directory » is not the root cause of the problem. > > > > > > I think a new build release to fix this, would be very welcome. > > > > > > Thank you very much for your time and your great work. :) > > > It’s really a nuisance that man (presumably gnu man, but I don’t > > > remember the details of a previous discussion) changed interpretation of > > > some important characters into „glyphs“ that some witty people thought > > > to be nice but are completely non-functional. > > > It applies not only to „-“ but also to „~“. Look at `man bash` and > > > search for bashrc and you'll see the tilde symbol replaced by an ugly > > > superscript „small tilde“. Why?? > > > Package maintainers are forced to adapt their man pages and either > > > replace all occurrences of these characters by corresponding escapes or > > > apply these two global tricks per man page: > > > > .char ^ \(ha > > > .char - \N'45' > > > It appears to be a consequence more of groff -man being upgraded to produce > > better quality typographic output more consistently with other macro > > packages, output devices, and more comprehensive font, character, and glyph > > sets, while not penalizing the other existing macro packages originally > > designed and intended to produce quality output: see groff(7), > > groff_rfc1345(7), and groff_char(7), for example: > > "The developers of AT&T /troff/ chose mappings for them that would be useful > > for typesetting technical literature in a broad range of scientific > > disciplines > > ... > > Keycap Appearance and meaning Special character and meaning > > " " neutral double quote \[dq] neutral double quote > > ' ’ closing single quote \[aq] neutral apostrophe > > - ‐ hyphen \- or \[-] minus sign/Unix dash > > \ (escape character) \e or \[rs] reverse solidus > > ^ ˆ modifier circumflex \(ha circumflex/caret/“hat” > > ` ‘ opening single quote \(ga grave accent > > ~ ˜ modifier tilde \(ti tilde" > > > Really this tension between compatibility with tty input and basic/draft and > > typographic quality output has existed since the earliest days of > > computerized text formatting and typesetting with various levels of higher > > quality output devices from dot matrix, daisy wheel, phototypesetter, > > electrostatic, laser, and higher quality rendering devices. > > > [Note: \N'#' refers to the current output font glyph index *NOT* an input > > code.] > > > > > Upstream sources seems to provide only .md man sources and no b-r > > > > package for conversion (pandoc unavailable from Cygwin) so man pages > > > > are generated for the upstream sources, and this conversion > > > > generates man page options with plain text hyphen-minus, which are > > > > treated by man as normal text *hyphen* `‐` not plain text *minus* > > > > `-`. > > > > In man pages you use escaped hyphen-minus `\fB\-v\fR` to treat them > > > > as minus text `-` as used in options `-v`. > > > > We see this use of unescaped hyphens in the upstream tar files, > > > > below, so please complain upstream about their man page generation, > > > > and reopen their issue: > > > > ``` > > > > $ wget https://mirror.../x86_64/release/flac/flac-1.5.0-1-src.tar.xz > > > > $ tar -xvf flac-1.5.0-1-src.tar.xz > > > > flac-1.5.0-1.src/ > > > > flac-1.5.0-1.src/flac-1.5.0.tar.xz # upstream sources > > > > flac-1.5.0-1.src/FLAC.cygport > > > > $ tar -xvf flac-1.5.0-1.src/flac-1.5.0.tar.xz > > > > flac-1.5.0/man/{,meta}flac.1 > > > > flac-1.5.0/man/flac.1 > > > > flac-1.5.0/man/metaflac.1 > > > > $ grep -m5 '\\f[[{]\?B[]}]\\\?-' flac-1.5.0/man/{,meta}flac.1 > > > > flac-1.5.0/man/flac.1:\f[B]-\f[R] \f[I]\&...\f[R] ] > > > > flac-1.5.0/man/flac.1:\f[B]flac\f[R] [ \f[B]-d\f[R] | > > > > \f[B]--decode\f[R] | \f[B]-t\f[R] | > > > > flac-1.5.0/man/flac.1:\f[B]--test\f[R] | \f[B]-a\f[R] | > > > > \f[B]--analyze\f[R] ] [ > > > > flac-1.5.0/man/flac.1:\f[I]infile.ogg\f[R] | \f[B]-\f[R] > > > > \f[I]\&...\f[R] ] > > > > flac-1.5.0/man/flac.1:\f[B]-d\f[R], analysis with \f[B]-a\f[R] or > > > > testing with \f[B]-t\f[R]. > > > > flac-1.5.0/man/metaflac.1:\f[B]-o\f[R] \f[I]filename\f[R]\f[B], > > > > --output- name=\f[R]\f[I]filename\f[R] > > > > flac-1.5.0/man/metaflac.1:\f[B]--preserve-modtime\f[R] > > > > flac-1.5.0/man/metaflac.1:\f[B]--with-filename\f[R] > > > > flac-1.5.0/man/metaflac.1:\f[B]--no-filename\f[R] > > > > flac-1.5.0/man/metaflac.1:\f[B]--no-utf8-convert\f[R] > > > > ``` > > -- > > My experience with the man page of `which`, which > mirrors that of Vincent with FLAC > > http://drbean.sdf.org/LooksLikeHyphen.html
My experience is that this is a problem pretty much everywhere on the 'Net. Long ago I wrote a simple filter script to remove all non-printing characters and CR and LF from the clipboard contents and put the result back into the clipboard. I then display the contents for a few seconds before closing the window. This won't properly deal with Unicode in the copied data, but at least you can see that the data is bogus. As a Cygwin newbie long ago, I was constantly getting errors because of spurious CR characters in copied text. Sometimes it was completely non-obvious that this was the problem and it wasn't until I started using my filter script regularly that I stopped getting mysterious errors. If someone wanted to write a clipboard "purifier" that would de-Unicode and de-HTML the data, I'd be forever grateful. I wouldn't have a clue how to go about this myself. -- Problem reports: https://cygwin.com/problems.html FAQ: https://cygwin.com/faq/ Documentation: https://cygwin.com/docs.html Unsubscribe info: https://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple
