Correct use of hyphens in man-pages

When writing manual pages the question comes up when to use "-" and when to use "\-". The answer is actually quite simple. Use "-" whenever you want a hyphen and "\-" when you want a minus sign.

There are two exceptions though: In the name section, "\-" is used to separate program name from short description, as in "man \- an interface to on-line manuals".

The other exception is that you have to use "\-" for options/switches (-h, --foo, etc.). "\-" causes man to emit an U+002d Hyphen-Minus character, whereas "-" results in U+2010 Hyphen (in a unicode locale).

U+2d is the normal ASCII hyphen char, the one programs use to test for switches. So "\-" allows copy&paste from the manpage, while "-" doesn't.