[PATCH 12/40] find/find.1: Improve table formatting.

"G. Branden Robinson" <[email protected]> Thu, 13 Nov 2025 10:47:12 -0600
Newsgroups	gmane.comp.gnu.findutils.bugs
Message-ID	<20251113164712.e5qwzypfzyr44wsl@illithid>
* Use paragraphing macros to put vertical space above and below the
  tables (where not already present) so that they looks more like
  typographical "displays".[1]
* Simplify "XY" table definition (see groff's tbl(1) man page).  This
  simpler definition has the same result (and is more adaptable in the
  event the text of the table is revised).
* Put horizontal rule below column headings in table that uses them.
* Use thin space escape sequences `\|` between the dots of an ellipsis;
  effect visible only on typesetting devices.[2]  I left the dummy
  character escape sequence `\&` trailing it intact, but observe for the
  edification of nit-pickers that it has no effect in this context.[3]

[1] man(7) implementations are historically inconsistent with respect to
    whether a `TS` macro call should put any vertical space on the
    output, and compositional practices on the part of man page authors
    have thus been, to quote Ingo Schwarze, "wildly inconsistent".

    https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?62841

[2] groff_man_style(7):

       Examples of ellipsis usage are shown above, in subsection
       “Synopsis macros”.  The idiomatic roff ellipsis is three dots
       (periods) with thin space escape sequences \| internally
       separating them.

[3] tbl(1):

     Ordinarily, a table entry is typeset rigidly.  It is not filled,
     broken, hyphenated, adjusted, or populated with supplemental inter‐
     sentence space.
---
 find/find.1 | 12 ++++++------
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

diff --git a/find/find.1 b/find/find.1
index 0fdc4942..77ce82db 100644
--- a/find/find.1
+++ b/find/find.1
@@ -940,18 +940,16 @@ .SS TESTS
 .BR equal .
 The letters \fIX\fR and \fIY\fR can be any of the following letters:
 .
+.IP
 .TS
-ll
-ll
-ll
-ll
-llw(2i).
+LL.
 a	The access time of the file \fIreference\fR
 B	The birth time of the file \fIreference\fR
 c	The inode status change time of \fIreference\fR
 m	The modification time of the file \fIreference\fR
 t	\fIreference\fR is interpreted directly as a time
 .TE
+.IP
 .
 Some combinations are invalid; for example, it is invalid for
 .I X
@@ -2722,9 +2720,11 @@ .SH COMPATIBILITY
 exit status was unaffected by the failure of
 .BR \-delete .
 .
+.P
 .TS
 l l l .
 Feature	Added in	Also occurs in
+_
 \-files0\-from	4.9.0
 \-newerXY	4.3.3	BSD
 \-D	4.3.1
@@ -2733,7 +2733,7 @@ .SH COMPATIBILITY
 \-writable	4.3.0
 \-executable	4.3.0
 \-regextype	4.2.24
-\-exec ...\& +	4.2.12	POSIX
+\-exec .\|.\|.\& +	4.2.12	POSIX
 \-execdir	4.2.12	BSD
 \-okdir	4.2.12
 \-samefile	4.2.11
-- 
2.30.2
signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, 833 B)