Re: backslash in manpages ???
On Fri, Jan 25, 2002 at 01:12:49PM +0100, Sven wrote:
> Also i have the following :
>
> \wait{sec}
>
> which is rendered as
>
> 168,
>
> which makes me think that sec or wait has another meaning for man
> pages.
In *roff, \w'string', where ' is any character, gives you the width of
string. groff sees \wait{sec}, assumes you're using the separator "a"
and that you're missing the trailing separator, and outputs the width of
"it{sec}", i.e. 168 "basic units". The definition of a basic unit is
device-dependent.
> Could someone help me out, and tell me either how to correctly escape
> the \ in man pages or hint me on the correct documentation about it ?
You've already got the answer (\e), but you can find a good reference
for the language in the groff(7) man page, which is part of the groff
package.
Cheers,
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]
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