On Sun, Jul 5, 2026 at 6:14 PM Keith Thompson <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hans-Bernhard Bröker wrote: > > Am 05.07.2026 um 05:18 schrieb Keith Thompson via Cygwin: > > >>> Firstly, why is =~ completely undocumented in the bash man page? This > > >>> question was my first encounter with the feature. > > >> · > > >> Because it's not --- not undocumented, that is. Manpage search can't > > >> seem to find it, but it _is_ there. > > >> · > > >> Just search for '==' instead, then go one paragraph down. > > > Searches in man pages are controlled by your pager ($PAGER or > > > $MANPAGER). Your pager might be treating the ~ character specially. > > > Try searching for \~= . > >· > > It doesn't appear to be the pager --- it's groff translating the ~ to· > > some other character. One which I don't know how to type into the· > > search pattern. > >· > > What does help for me is overriding the language spec: > >· > > $ LC_ALL=C man bash > >· > > and, voila, / finds =~ just fine. > >· > > And FWIW, 'info bash' doesn't have that problem, either. > > You're right, I should have realized that. groff 1.23.0 changed > the way '-', '~', and '^' characters are rendered. This affects > a *lot* of man pages. > > ASCII '-' (U+002D, HYPHEN-MINUS) is translated to > '‐' (U+2010, HYPHEN). > > ASCII '~' (U+007E, TILDE) is translated to > '˜' (U+02DC, SMALL TILDE). > > ASCII '^' (U+005E, CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT) is translated to > '‐' (U+02C6, MODIFIER LETTER CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT). > > Hyphens have been the biggest problem. Searching a man page for > an option name often fails because of this.
Cygwin currently has bash 5.2.21-1. bash 5.3 updates the "bash.1" man page, and fixes the problem with '~' and '^' characters. (All versions render '-' characters correctly.) -- Keith Thompson -- 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
