GNU bug report logs - #50989
28.0.60; nobreak-char-display in Eldoc buffers

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Message #30 received at 50989 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 50989 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, arstoffel <at> gmail.com, joaotavora <at> gmail.com
Subject: Re: bug#50989: 28.0.60; nobreak-char-display in Eldoc buffers
Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2021 17:16:19 -0400

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  > IMNSHO, this doesn't make much sense.  That face exists for a reason:
  > to signal to the users that some innocently-looking characters aren't
  > what they look like.  What you suggest above is to sweep the problem
  > under the carpet.  I think this is not TRT.

That feature is useful for text that you're editing.
But I don't think it is useful in a help string which is displayed
only for you to read.  So I think it is good to suppress it for
help strings generally.

The only exception I can imagine would be if a doc string displays an
example of buffer or file contents containing a non-breaking space.
In principle, it would be good to make an exception for that case.

But I think that exceptional case would be difficult to detect
reliably.  Also, since doc strings generally don't include examples of
buffer or file contents, I think that case will never actually occur.
So I think we can get away with ignoring it.

It is ever worth doing, we could create a kind of quoting to force a
real NBSP into the displayed help string.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

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