Punctuation spacing

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

I have a set of definitions that I use to enforce correct spacing around
punctuation marks, such as:

  def ";" left word
  {
    @CurrLang @Case
    {
      # Half a space before, one space after
      French @Yield { word |0.5s ";" }
      else   @Yield { word ";"  }
    }
  }

The problem with this definition is that it precludes hyphenation of its
left parameter.  Moreover, the object returned by `;' is as large as its
(non-hyphened) left parameter plus spacing and semi-colon.  Therefore,
it sometimes yields paragraphs whose inter-object spacing is too large.

Is there a way to work around this problem?  I'm not sure macros would
do the trick --- and macros are bad anyway.  ;-)

Thanks,
Ludovic.