[PATCH 11/31] docs: favor groff `\[dq]` over multiple " marks

"G. Branden Robinson" <[email protected]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 17:58:45 -0500
Newsgroups	gmane.editors.nano.devel
Message-ID	<20260423225845.dwluzdpmd2rcft3o@illithid>
...in macro call arguments.

The document already uses the groff `dq` special character and groff's
extended `\[xx]` syntax, so improve man source document readability by
employing the special character to represent a "literal" neutral double
quote in macro call arguments.  (On text lines, the `"` already
format as itself, like `%` or `$`.)
---
 doc/nano.1   |  7 ++++---
 doc/nanorc.5 | 36 ++++++++++++++++++------------------
 2 files changed, 22 insertions(+), 21 deletions(-)

diff --git a/doc/nano.1 b/doc/nano.1
index 6e3ac13e..22402b63 100644
--- a/doc/nano.1
+++ b/doc/nano.1
@@ -201,7 +201,7 @@ .SH OPTIONS
 and place it at that position again upon reopening such a file.
 Also save and restore the positions of any anchors.
 .TP
-.BI "\-Q """ regex\fB"\fR, " \-\-quotestr=""" regex """"
+.BI "\-Q \[dq]" regex "\[dq]\fR, \fB\-\-quotestr=\[dq]" regex \[dq]
 Set the regular expression for matching the quoting part of a line.
 The default value is "\fB^([\ \\t]*([!#%:;>|}]|//))+\fR".
 (Note that \fB\\t\fR stands for an actual Tab.)
@@ -241,7 +241,7 @@ .SH OPTIONS
 Detect word boundaries differently by treating punctuation
 characters as part of a word.
 .TP
-.BI "\-X """ characters\fB"\fR, " \-\-wordchars=""" characters """"
+.BI "\-X \[dq]" characters "\[dq]\fR, \fB\-\-wordchars=\[dq]" characters \[dq]
 Specify which other characters (besides the normal alphanumeric ones)
 should be considered as part of a word.  When using this option, you
 probably want to omit \fB\-W\fR (\fB\-\-wordbounds\fR).
@@ -341,7 +341,8 @@ .SH OPTIONS
 point to vary along with the width of the screen if the screen is resized.
 The default value is \fB\-8\fR.
 .TP
-.B "\-s ""\fIprogram\fR [\fIargument \fR.\|.\|.]\fB""\fR, \fB\-\-speller=""\fIprogram\fR [\fIargument \fR.\|.\|.]\fB"""
+.BI "\-s \[dq]" "program \fR[\fIargument \fR.\|.\|.]" "\[dq]\fR, \
+\fB\-\-speller=\[dq]" "program \fR[\fIargument \fR.\|.\|.]" \[dq]
 Use this command to perform spell checking and correcting, instead of
 using the built-in corrector that calls \fBhunspell\fR(1) or \fBspell\fR(1).
 .TP
diff --git a/doc/nanorc.5 b/doc/nanorc.5
index b5624969..979d310a 100644
--- a/doc/nanorc.5
+++ b/doc/nanorc.5
@@ -125,7 +125,7 @@ .SH OPTIONS
 When justifying, treat any line that starts with whitespace as the
 beginning of a paragraph (unless auto-indenting is on).
 .TP
-.BI "set brackets """ characters """"
+.BI "set brackets \[dq]" characters \[dq]
 Set the characters treated as closing brackets when justifying
 paragraphs.  This may not include blank characters.  Only closing
 punctuation (see \fBset punct\fR), optionally followed by the specified
@@ -210,7 +210,7 @@ .SH OPTIONS
 (Calling libmagic can be relatively time consuming.
 It is therefore not done by default.)
 .TP
-.BI "set matchbrackets """ characters """"
+.BI "set matchbrackets \[dq]" characters \[dq]
 Specify the opening and closing brackets that can be found by bracket
 searches.  This may not include blank characters.  The opening set must
 come before the closing set, and the two sets must be in the same order.
@@ -283,7 +283,7 @@ .SH OPTIONS
 (When this option is not specified, the colors of the title bar are used.)
 See \fBset titlecolor\fR for more details.
 .TP
-.BI "set punct """ characters """"
+.BI "set punct \[dq]" characters \[dq]
 Set the characters treated as closing punctuation when justifying
 paragraphs.  This may not include blank characters.  Only the
 specified closing punctuation, optionally followed by closing brackets
@@ -296,7 +296,7 @@ .SH OPTIONS
 \fBquickblank\fR makes a message disappear after
 0.8 seconds instead of after the default 1.5 seconds.
 .TP
-.BI "set quotestr """ regex """"
+.BI "set quotestr \[dq]" regex \[dq]
 Set the regular expression for matching the quoting part of a line.
 The default value is "\fB^([\ \et]*([!#%:;>|}]|//))+\fR".
 (Note that \fB\et\fR stands for an actual Tab character.)
@@ -355,7 +355,7 @@ .SH OPTIONS
 The single-line jerky sideways scrolling enabled by this option was the old
 behavior \[em] the only behavior that \fBnano\fR knew.
 .TP
-.B set speller """\fIprogram\fR [\fIargument \fR.\|.\|.]\fB"""
+.BI "set speller \[dq]" "program \fR[\fIargument \fR.\|.\|.]" \[dq]
 Use the given \fIprogram\fR to do spell checking and correcting, instead of
 using the built-in corrector that calls \fBhunspell\fR(1) or \fBspell\fR(1).
 .TP
@@ -427,7 +427,7 @@ .SH OPTIONS
 default behavior of saving a file in the format that it had.
 (This option has no effect when you also use \fBset noconvert\fR.)
 .TP
-.BI "set whitespace """ characters """"
+.BI "set whitespace \[dq]" characters \[dq]
 Set the two characters used to indicate the presence of tabs and
 spaces.  They must be single-column characters.  The default pair
 for a UTF-8 locale is "\fB\[Fc]\[md]\fR", and for other locales "\fB>.\fR".
@@ -436,7 +436,7 @@ .SH OPTIONS
 Detect word boundaries differently by treating punctuation
 characters as parts of words.
 .TP
-.BI "set wordchars """ characters """"
+.BI "set wordchars \[dq]" characters \[dq]
 Specify which other characters (besides the normal alphanumeric ones)
 should be considered as parts of words.  When using this option, you
 probably want to unset \fBwordbounds\fR.
@@ -486,7 +486,7 @@ .SH SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING
 For each kind of file a separate syntax can be defined
 via the following commands:
 .TP
-.BI syntax " name \fR[" """" fileregex """ " \fR.\|.\|.]
+.BI syntax " name \fR[" \[dq] fileregex \[dq] " \fR.\|.\|.]"
 Start the definition of a syntax with this \fIname\fR.
 All subsequent \fBcolor\fR and other such commands
 are added to this syntax, until a new \fBsyntax\fR
@@ -504,12 +504,12 @@ .SH SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING
 The syntax \fBnone\fR is reserved; specifying it on the command line
 is the same as not having a syntax at all.
 .TP
-.BI "header """ regex """ " \fR.\|.\|.
+.BI "header \[dq]" regex "\[dq] " \fR.\|.\|.
 If from all defined syntaxes no \fIfileregex\fR matched, then compare
 this \fIregex\fR (or regexes) against the first line of the current file,
 to determine whether this syntax should be used for it.
 .TP
-.BI "magic """ regex """ " \fR.\|.\|.
+.BI "magic \[dq]" regex "\[dq] " \fR.\|.\|.
 If no \fIfileregex\fR matched and no \fBheader\fR regex matched
 either, then compare this \fIregex\fR (or regexes) against the
 result of querying the \fBmagic\fR database about the current
@@ -523,7 +523,7 @@ .SH SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING
 .BI linter " program " \fR[ "argument " \fR.\|.\|.]
 Use the given \fIprogram\fR to run a syntax check on the current buffer.
 .TP
-.BI "comment """ string """"
+.BI "comment \[dq]" string \[dq]
 Use the given \fIstring\fR for commenting and uncommenting lines.
 If the string contains a vertical bar or pipe character (\fB|\fR),
 this designates bracket-style comments; for example, "\fB/*|*/\fR" for
@@ -534,12 +534,12 @@ .SH SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING
 function is disabled; for example, "" for JSON.
 The default value is "\fB#\fR".
 .TP
-.BI "tabgives """ string """"
+.BI "tabgives \[dq]" string \[dq]
 Make the <Tab> key produce the given \fIstring\fR.  Useful for languages like
 Python that want to see only spaces for indentation.
 This overrides the setting of the \fBtabstospaces\fR option.
 .TP
-.BI "color \fR[\fBbold,\fR][\fBitalic,\fR]" fgcolor , bgcolor " """ regex """ " \fR.\|.\|.
+.BI "color \fR[\fBbold,\fR][\fBitalic,\fR]" fgcolor , bgcolor " \[dq]" regex "\[dq] \fR.\|.\|."
 Paint all pieces of text that match the extended regular expression
 \fIregex\fR with the given foreground and background colors, at least
 one of which must be specified.  Valid color names are:
@@ -571,10 +571,10 @@ .SH SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING
 All coloring commands are applied in the order in which they are specified,
 which means that later commands can recolor stuff that was colored earlier.
 .TP
-.BI "icolor \fR[\fBbold,\fR][\fBitalic,\fR]" fgcolor , bgcolor " """ regex """ " \fR.\|.\|.
+.BI "icolor \fR[\fBbold,\fR][\fBitalic,\fR]" fgcolor , bgcolor " \[dq]" regex "\[dq] \fR.\|.\|."
 Same as above, except that the matching is case insensitive.
 .TP
-.BI "color \fR[\fBbold,\fR][\fBitalic,\fR]" fgcolor , bgcolor " start=""" fromrx """ end=""" torx """"
+.BI "color \fR[\fBbold,\fR][\fBitalic,\fR]" fgcolor , bgcolor " start=\[dq]" fromrx "\[dq] end=\[dq]" torx \[dq]
 Paint all pieces of text whose start matches extended regular expression
 \fIfromrx\fR and whose end matches extended regular expression \fItorx\fR
 with the given foreground and background colors,
@@ -583,10 +583,10 @@ .SH SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING
 \fItorx\fR is colored.  This allows syntax highlighting to span
 multiple lines.
 .TP
-.BI "icolor \fR[\fBbold,\fR][\fBitalic,\fR]" fgcolor , bgcolor " start=""" fromrx """ end=""" torx """"
+.BI "icolor \fR[\fBbold,\fR][\fBitalic,\fR]" fgcolor , bgcolor " start=\[dq]" fromrx "\[dq] end=\[dq]" torx \[dq]
 Same as above, except that the matching is case insensitive.
 .TP
-.BI "include """ syntaxfile """"
+.BI "include \[dq]" syntaxfile \[dq]
 Read in self-contained color syntaxes from \fIsyntaxfile\fR.  Note that
 \fIsyntaxfile\fR may contain only the above commands, from \fBsyntax\fR
 to \fBicolor\fR.
@@ -608,7 +608,7 @@ .SH REBINDING KEYS
 Rebinds the given \fIkey\fR to the given \fIfunction\fR in the given \fImenu\fR
 (or in all menus where the function exists when \fBall\fR is used).
 .TP
-.BI bind " key " """" string """" " menu"
+.BI "bind " key " \[dq]" string "\[dq] " menu
 Makes the given \fIkey\fR produce the given \fIstring\fR in the given
 \fImenu\fR (or in all menus where the key exists when \fBall\fR is used).
 Besides literal text and/or control codes, the \fIstring\fR may contain
-- 
2.30.2
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