Hi, Thanks for this question, we don't yet have a style guide for creating man pages for OpenSolaris, but it is in progress and will be reviewed in the community. Here's what I found on the style we use for special characters so far. I'm no expert, so let me know if this is not helpful and then provide me with more detail about what you need further.
Special Characters When referring to a printable character for the first time on a particular reference page, use the spelled-out name of the character first, followed by the character in parentheses (except in examples, where you should use the character literally). Use the <literal> tag for the actual character. For example: ?Use the backslash (<literal>\</literal>) to escape special characters.? You can add the word ?character? if necessary (for example, ?the backslash character?). After the first occurrence, you can use the name of the character without showing the character itself. When referring to nonprintable characters, use the name of the character alone in text. For example: ?You must separate arguments with a space character.? In examples, use the replaceable tag for a name that represents a character. If the character must be shown without spaces between it and an adjacent character, enclose the name of the nonprintable character in angle brackets. For example: <tab><tab>field1 Hope this helps, Michelle This message posted from opensolaris.org
