[texhax] Adjusting parentheses for intervals and functions

[W.J. Metzger]

On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 Ian.Collier at comlab.ox.ac.uk wrote:
 
> pgt at arcor.de (Plamen Tanovski) wrote in texhax:
> >PS: nicefrac sucks. It uses the virgule instead of the solidus. This
> >may be OK for CM, where the solidus also sucks (compare with the
> >fraction bar in the percent sign), but for the rest of the fonts it is
> >simply wrong.
>
> Forgive me for asking, but what /is/ the difference between "virgule"
> and "solidus"?  Which TeX chars are we talking about?
 
Google lead me to   http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Solidus.html
                    http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Virgule.html
However, from these pages it appears that both symbols can be used
for division.
 
I hope someone else can provide a more complete answer.
 
Cheers, Wes
 
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