Re: GNUlib unicode encoding causes smart quotes to be displayed in program's output

[Wes Hurd]

What I meant about smart quotes being dangerous was, if copying the output text that contains smart quotes to use somewhere else (especially in code), the smart quotes have to be manually replaced which is tedious for the user (programmer).

The user may not even see that smart quotes are being used unless there is a breaking error.

On Thu, Dec 5, 2019 at 12:07 PM Tim Rühsen <address@hidden> wrote:

On 12/5/19 4:12 PM, Wes Hurd wrote:
> Hi,
>
> It seems GNUlib quote encoding goes to Unicode smart quotes, which causes
> command-line program output to be in smart quotes.
> Smart quotes are dangerous for programmers and technical users, and should
> be avoided in program output.
>
> Originally noticed with wget -
> https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?57356#comment1
>
> Can you change it to use only regular typed " quotes , at least with STDOUT
> / STDERR ?

All the GNU tools support localization. And there seems to be some kind
of inconsistency.


$ LANGUAGE=de cp
cp: Fehlender Dateioperand
„cp --help“ liefert weitere Informationen.


$ LANGUAGE=de wget
wget: URL fehlt
Aufruf: wget [OPTION]... [URL] …

»wget --help« gibt weitere Informationen.


Which one is correct ?

Maybe someone here can bring light into this or give us a pointer where
to get clarification.

Wes, maybe you can elaborate why you think that smart quotes are
*dangerous* ?

Regards, Tim