Debian Bug report logs - #1052675
man-db: renders dashes as U+2010 breaking copy/paste of --long-options from man pages

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: FC Stegerman <flx@obfusk.net>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: man-db: renders dashes as U+2010 breaking copy/paste of --long-options from man pages

Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2023 00:58:27 +0200

Package: man-db
Version: 2.12.0-1
Severity: normal
X-Debbugs-Cc: flx@obfusk.net

Hi!

I ran into this before with curl in #1043309, but it seems many other
man pages (e.g. apksigner, apksigcopier, pandoc, yt-dlp, etc.) are
affected as well, which makes me wonder if this is not something that
should be fixed in man instead.

Example:

  $ man apksigner

  Now copy the string that looks like "--version" for the following
  two commands instead of typing it by hand:

  $ apksigner ‐‐version
  Unsupported command: ‐‐version. See --help for supported commands
  $ xxd <<< ‐‐version
  00000000: e280 90e2 8090 7665 7273 696f 6e0a       ......version.

  Typing it by hand with actual dashes (ASCII 0x2d) instead of U+2010:

  $ apksigner --version
  0.9
  $ xxd <<< --version
  00000000: 2d2d 7665 7273 696f 6e0a                 --version.

Workaround:

  $ LC_ALL=C man apksigner

- Fay

Message #18 received at 1052675-submitter@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>

To: 1052675-submitter@bugs.debian.org, control@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#1052675: man-db: renders dashes as U+2010 breaking copy/paste of --long-options from man pages

Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2023 22:22:57 -0500

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

package man-db groff-base
severity 1052675 serious
reassign 1052675 groff-base
merge 1041731 1052675
thanks

Hi FC,

The fundamental issue here is that groff 1.23.0 is exposing, rather than
concealing, glyph usage errors in man pages.  The plan is to permit such
exposure while the next release of Debian is in development, so that
developers are made aware of the issue and can address it (if they
choose), and then conceal such errors again as a Debian patch to groff
around the time of the trixie freeze.

From groff's NEWS file:

  o The an (man) and doc (mdoc) macro packages no longer remap the -, ',
    and ` input characters to Basic Latin code points on UTF-8 devices,
    but treat them as groff normally does (and AT&T troff before it did)
    for typesetting devices, where they become the hyphen, apostrophe or
    right single quotation mark, and left single quotation mark,
    respectively.  This change is expected to expose glyph usage errors
    in man pages.  See the "PROBLEMS" file for a recipe that will
    conceal these errors.  A better long-term approach is for man pages
    to adopt correct input practices; the man pages groff_man_style(7),
    groff_char(7), and man-pages(7) (subsection "Generating optimal
    glyphs"; from the Linux man-pages project) contain such
    instructions.  Doing so also improves man page typography when
    formatting for PDF.

    If you maintain a generator of man(7) or mdoc(7) documents (such as
    a tool that converts other formats to them), and need assistance,
    please contact the groff@gnu.org mailing list and describe your
    situation.

At 2023-09-26T00:58:27+0200, FC Stegerman wrote:
>   $ LC_ALL=C man apksigner

Since many people like the expanded glyph repertoire of UTF-8, you might
apply the patch documented in groff's PROBLEMS file to your
/etc/groff/man.local.

--- start ---
.if '\*[.T]'utf8' \{\
.  char ' \[aq]
.  char - \-
.  char ^ \[ha]
.  char ` \[ga]
.  char ~ \[ti]
.\}
--- end ---

As that file notes, you may also wish to do the same for "mdoc.local".

Regards,
Branden

[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Message #23 received at 1041731-close@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Debian FTP Masters <ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org>

To: 1041731-close@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Bug#1041731: fixed in groff 1.23.0-3

Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2023 11:34:06 +0000

Source: groff
Source-Version: 1.23.0-3
Done: Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>

We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
groff, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive.

A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed.  If you
have further comments please address them to 1041731@bugs.debian.org,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org> (supplier of updated groff package)

(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org)


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Format: 1.8
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2023 12:11:07 +0100
Source: groff
Architecture: source
Version: 1.23.0-3
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: medium
Maintainer: Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>
Changed-By: Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>
Closes: 1041731
Changes:
 groff (1.23.0-3) unstable; urgency=medium
 .
   [ G. Branden Robinson ]
   * debian/groff-base.mime: Run groff with '-t' to unconditionally preprocess
     with tbl(1).  Since these MIME types are assumed to be man pages anyway
     (hence the existing '-mandoc' option), it costs little to do this and will
     help many more documents render well.
 .
   [ Colin Watson ]
   * Map "-", "'", and "`" to "\-", "\[aq]", and "\[ga]" again for UTF-8
     manual pages (closes: #1041731).
Checksums-Sha1:
 6dff42fdf14518852e084ee14bd89da8a104d572 2423 groff_1.23.0-3.dsc
 1a3098d592a247afdd24fd793262768493db291a 42340 groff_1.23.0-3.debian.tar.xz
Checksums-Sha256:
 95b95950e13c7ee3391fe3cccf125329de9887d9f1967b1e2b4c61ffff9f9328 2423 groff_1.23.0-3.dsc
 e0ca7a8798c59a85ec60d2cf21802c52faaebc7082699eddc8410b2915d23bf5 42340 groff_1.23.0-3.debian.tar.xz
Files:
 f0dfbe3763cb9f22aec931797b11f329 2423 text important groff_1.23.0-3.dsc
 ddb5a2d5d37afd832583049022269b0c 42340 text important groff_1.23.0-3.debian.tar.xz

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