DMARC-Filter:	OpenDMARC Filter v1.4.2 delorie.com 615FOKkv1304060
Authentication-Results:	delorie.com; dmarc=pass (p=none dis=none) header.from=cygwin.com
Authentication-Results:	delorie.com; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=cygwin.com
DKIM-Filter:	OpenDKIM Filter v2.11.0 delorie.com 615FOKkv1304060
Authentication-Results:	delorie.com;
	dkim=pass (1024-bit key, unprotected) header.d=cygwin.com header.i=@cygwin.com header.a=rsa-sha256 header.s=default header.b=Tx1JVXyW
X-Recipient:	archive-cygwin AT delorie DOT com
DKIM-Filter:	OpenDKIM Filter v2.11.0 sourceware.org 3CE3E4BA543C
DKIM-Signature:	v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=cygwin.com;
	s=default; t=1770305059;
	bh=49rgv+7TCcGPiRNNJ4vMuV816KhPTzCTy4Nneeo+EGY=;
	h=References:In-Reply-To:Date:Subject:To:Cc:List-Id:
	List-Unsubscribe:List-Archive:List-Post:List-Help:List-Subscribe:
	From:Reply-To:From;
	b=Tx1JVXyWFsmADoH8k00+naoGz/eCHhMQItut6dhgEkGaJ4s+XMDuOHZ+kVqA5FWWJ
	eBrBCe/sBg1KN6thqO3N0zQERu9mCo6MHzqR/+UFBJwHplpajOohYYGx8LtdryCxbK
	D52prOspWnWMz9gvagydFS9VT8mYJmBFg0Pro2Qw=
X-Original-To:	cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Delivered-To:	cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
DMARC-Filter:	OpenDMARC Filter v1.4.2 sourceware.org E021F4BA543C
ARC-Filter:	OpenARC Filter v1.0.0 sourceware.org E021F4BA543C
ARC-Seal:	i=2; a=rsa-sha256; d=sourceware.org; s=key; t=1770305039; cv=pass;
	b=UfYfyMqOP90oIC54ApFvPgNVyYrWfhOYhszANE6uWll4Ouxo7ErShOHx1kY3nASj6pw/R8r4mZE8Qk4eTu5ybM5DYSHQtKyhuT35ztyuUMnHwu4ZTrYdfIPFH/oIh0TYkSQlXxBL/l91INHR2NLq9hyv6lx8++xx+YrNPO5ZB1M=
ARC-Message-Signature:	i=2; a=rsa-sha256; d=sourceware.org; s=key;
	t=1770305039; c=relaxed/simple;
	bh=xbfnyKZbRugeODalJj3GCCAXgwOe0mMb/mnXHym9GnE=;
	h=DKIM-Signature:MIME-Version:From:Date:Message-ID:Subject:To;
	b=tKAecYjvXhBoA5E2t3TJFNLjvJWGNydpVfZYTkiq1QM6jqO9swojQz8VbNlOYXbBHC0kYfOK8DHqUQtpbEpybY/8FV/Ut8yUZux/vLmRLQq5/J732JkQD9JhtgoXFKdh5Ketcq+dfZhEeYClzqDL466O9EOAJE4R0xzzHUX5iA8=
ARC-Authentication-Results:	i=2; server2.sourceware.org
DKIM-Filter:	OpenDKIM Filter v2.11.0 sourceware.org E021F4BA543C
ARC-Seal:	i=1; a=rsa-sha256; t=1770305037; cv=none;
	d=google.com; s=arc-20240605;
	b=VIGGbQCviUbcHHl4oHBf6r/77wgjKq3RxdpMaFc5bj5ioi5EeF1+miA4Ec5Jjo20No
	xDR44+uwViv4WzrRcjFC+XBW0ewnXN0Q48CLQN1kR8sSv2SF6kB+YJSdo00WTPd5ioXC
	EfDe/JQEcWD4jKutmuZQvaKRL+F6CdXaRkeWoyApgg4aYv4VkBAcE13ssPUA1ral83wT
	eVNueb8VjLi3AsEh3CzLTlJtO/NYqxm01FLh0JbwER/aFU2DHG4n0PINetZWIDk7u62u
	4ahmgfahg/A1t1W47NVKCsMSPbCc6e/hElC/NJ16CDi9/V/Act4cKUpw047aOpGHJjP/
	1gkA==
ARC-Message-Signature:	i=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=google.com;
	s=arc-20240605;
	h=cc:to:subject:message-id:date:from:in-reply-to:references
	:mime-version:dkim-signature;
	bh=aTsJqQcFN9WvfApsxbc5Pn+jtMrPL/u+D0I4Mz0IU6A=;
	fh=108zC41fKpyj++nDr8ai636CMFBR8CFOdqiZXZ9WLHc=;
	b=aNKc7AcGMN5xjKMHvOEKMDQH+FTFnSZ5XOEuUGzY0VBe2ilYI6LQlmj/+G4gNSxUYC
	fWc33vjPJPcOPsa54myRq4dc2qpqb9ISdlqcqSGoA/xroNCDKE+B9pnZpfyZo6Pt68Iq
	E0TNGzP6PjaTn3zYD6zn0zU9cnDp3LDIwWqREjOIJtcim2mOWdSi9tjdQcd7NBogv9zT
	5DcaS5EVmbefSbzzbAkj/oWizCaCGq1Yh9xrfSiDDcERXbIZkSCme13Fg2BeFP3MV9DI
	ZnnTIfXtKXTzFvkL3qM4W2IPcovIu9dHt33Xn3kVPtsOe+dqlETDcUWvPfgtxMqYriaG
	TbRw==; darn=cygwin.com
ARC-Authentication-Results:	i=1; mx.google.com; arc=none
X-Google-DKIM-Signature:	v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed;
	d=1e100.net; s=20230601; t=1770305037; x=1770909837;
	h=cc:to:subject:message-id:date:from:in-reply-to:references
	:mime-version:x-gm-gg:x-gm-message-state:from:to:cc:subject:date
	:message-id:reply-to;
	bh=aTsJqQcFN9WvfApsxbc5Pn+jtMrPL/u+D0I4Mz0IU6A=;
	b=Hk8T1R0iE1WYMde7F5OGayQF494igeedlrs0xmiEnM5DmLQwgNsugkLRiFBEemncxj
	KjEz2CGqG1Ntd0Iag+QjMncfkLBmw9zcwhtAn4yWu2WXIYisXd0tiBIDEpR/PWJOXYas
	QPCd1gkDo1pOlFiDzFmbab2l/ga0D6rgd1vsn+b/ffjcmGYsO/XI0mPhqCZ7HP7d8ddG
	nodNtY8nVuvcgHjksI8vwMEHtM7dnVln2btteBVpoOFxpRZjqZZiBnOt4ceo8qFD5+G4
	CSFI1+NfeDKINHxOt6pGx6rQg9AxySvFUM2rGG/8US17iCAvevXhP/sDmnBT5GzIMcN5
	7aww==
X-Gm-Message-State:	AOJu0Yx6qCmIQ5MfqifWFQKIWf4YyolFGlBHv6NPhtJ+FeDXawQdtEv2
	fO+SsyeMPH6066uiGnfaHaJVaOpLmPC3rx5oLOWPXwSSz1RAe1o3GtPB3ARoNM6j6qi31k0ZXWS
	BAuE0HY7pgFO1vlc+LzvbKUM8XMdvvtHHRc0C
X-Gm-Gg:	AZuq6aKE05UI5aJBqZwFEPS275j+oF8aiD7Rq0dHMa9mhqDdxeRW6T/1QkaPlj6M8k/
	TSeufON6XrgnzvHNzWMFQQkvaeORHFPa2uXLWOzmJOpv09f3goLsKnKo13iPT5kAmBuK8fyatoM
	TqyJcZHonpMhmV09mmaL754oU8MFrCDYTQLwZG+T1y8smz7LS7OWMwYfkXmBe4t4+FKZYfypyuI
	+rMpAYOVNfxNW9x4zgYyLIrnknM0/GKoPXvkIvhOzUNt9SR+Hb5KpUpelk9AZhp48PsO9aeGkNr
	DRr5AoCoJ1uyc8IxGJ8ihXP7b7naY2sh3cYQYV88F5RR6t1GVRldT6zapOs6zGzU+xaRe2+ongZ
	7WvgpJvzkiAMSCg==
X-Received:	by 2002:a2e:a54b:0:b0:386:91a1:f1f2 with SMTP id
	38308e7fff4ca-38691c6064cmr29450551fa.7.1770305037017; Thu, 05 Feb 2026
	07:23:57 -0800 (PST)
MIME-Version:	1.0
References:	<CAAA95V9-WVQh5hbOvtZhCOBU8JpmfR98E+=aQyeOa+b1H2S_-Q AT mail DOT gmail DOT com>
	<bb351b4c-cf88-4480-b58a-46301a084c17 AT SystematicSW DOT ab DOT ca>
	<2eb7528d-babd-4bc8-9c0d-b2f77499a627 AT towo DOT net>
	<943e0dd6-cde5-4195-94f6-e5c15c5895f5 AT SystematicSW DOT ab DOT ca>
	<aYPUuBjYmf-HoTAn AT sdf DOT org>
	<CAKwdsS9nVc3KNPL7A3YdN8BaECvtz0HxpQfiZ6G25Mf28RHhHw AT mail DOT gmail DOT com>
	<2df6193d-2b40-42ab-bad4-9d3b827e0daf AT towo DOT net>
In-Reply-To:	<2df6193d-2b40-42ab-bad4-9d3b827e0daf@towo.net>
Date:	Thu, 5 Feb 2026 07:23:45 -0800
X-Gm-Features:	AZwV_QhUmS6fbP9MlpnGHjIrsSIlEh7UmZXDYguPQxRlRZ85VFJ9DqJ9p834zt8
Message-ID:	<CALy05zsD7V=HpN1Ys-VYnZW0EDKeMxTv56j0KN6roqgmAyAwwA@mail.gmail.com>
Subject:	Re: [FLAC 1.5.0-1] Man pages use HYPHEN character instead of
	HYPHEN-MINUS.
To:	Thomas Wolff <towo AT towo DOT net>
Cc:	cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
X-Content-Filtered-By:	Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.30
X-BeenThere:	cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
X-Mailman-Version:	2.1.30
List-Id:	General Cygwin discussions and problem reports <cygwin.cygwin.com>
List-Archive:	<https://cygwin.com/pipermail/cygwin/>
List-Post:	<mailto:cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
List-Help:	<mailto:cygwin-request AT cygwin DOT com?subject=help>
List-Subscribe:	<https://cygwin.com/mailman/listinfo/cygwin>,
	<mailto:cygwin-request AT cygwin DOT com?subject=subscribe>
From:	Backwoods BC via Cygwin <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
Reply-To:	Backwoods BC <completely DOT and DOT totally DOT trash AT gmail DOT com>
Sender:	"Cygwin" <cygwin-bounces~archive-cygwin=delorie DOT com AT cygwin DOT com>
X-MIME-Autoconverted:	from base64 to 8bit by delorie.com id 615FOKkv1304060

On Thu, Feb 5, 2026 at 4:57 AM Thomas Wolff via Cygwin <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
wrote:

> Am 05.02.2026 um 12:11 schrieb Backwoods BC via Cygwin:
> > On Wed, Feb 4, 2026 at 3:23 PM Dr Bean via Cygwin <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
> 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.
> >
> This isn't the issue. I don't think you'd want your clipboard contents
> mangled from what you copied.
>

You're right, I don't. I want a filter that I can pipe the clipboard
through when I think that there are characters I want "cleaned up."


> The problem discussed here is what `man` provides for copying in the
> first place.
>
> Revised my workaround for man page maintainers:
> .char - \-
> .char ^ \(ha
> .char ~ \(ti
>
> And you may add these or keep their special layout:
> .char ` \(ga
> .char ' \(aq
>
> Thomas


This is a 2-phase problem. While you might manage to get man suppliers to
clean up what they release (I have serious doubts about that happening, but
I hope I'm wrong), that doesn't do anything about pasting from web pages,
documents, etc. where text is often mangled with HTML and/or Unicode
characters.

A filter such as I proposed would go a long way toward making copying and
pasting less cumbersome. I currently have another script (I admit to being
script-crazed) that dumps the clipboard into a temp file that I then open
in Notepad so that I can clean it up before pasting it. If my proposed
de-gunking filter existed, I could dispense with doing this a lot of the
time.

-- 
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

- Raw text -