Re: @math{-} does not produce a minus sign in Info

[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2022-10-25 14:51:46 +0100, Gavin Smith wrote:
> > There's another bug in the manual:
> > 
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Use the '@minus{}' command to generate a minus sign.  In a fixed-width
> > font, this is a single hyphen, but in a proportional font, the symbol is
> > the customary length for a minus sign--a little longer than a hyphen,
> > shorter than an em-dash:
> > 
> >      '-' is a minus sign generated with '@minus{}',
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > (where '-' is the ASCII hyphen-minus), which is incorrect: in the
> > MPFR manual, I get the real minus sign '−'. I suspect that the
> > difference is due to the chosen encoding. But the manual is silent
> > on this point.
> 
> It's not incorrect, just making accommodations for the character
> encoding.

But in such a case, the manual should have mentioned the encoding
issue.

> FWIW, the Info file currently outputs with
> 
>      ‘−’ is a minus sign generated with ‘@minus{}’,
> 
> The − there is not an ASCII character.  Note also the directional
> quote marks.
> 
> It's possible you have an old version of the manual,

This is the Debian/unstable version (texinfo 6.8-6+b1). So this is
the latest release.

> or that you are running Info in a non-UTF-8 locale where fallback
> characters are used.

I'm running Info in a UTF-8 locale. Anyway, the issue comes from
the info file itself: /usr/share/info/texinfo.info-2.gz has the
ASCII hyphen-minus.

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Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
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