retext-quotes

retext plugin to check quotes and apostrophes, and warn if their style ("straight" or “smart”) or level of nesting is not the preferred style.

Install

This package is ESM only: Node 12+ is needed to use it and it must be imported instead of required.

npm:

npm install retext-quotes

Use

Say we have the following file, example.txt:

A sentence "with quotes, 'nested' quotes,
and '80s apostrophes."

…and our script, example.js, looks like this:

import {readSync} from 'to-vfile'
import {reporter} from 'vfile-reporter'
import {unified} from 'unified'
import retextEnglish from 'retext-english'
import retextQuotes from 'retext-quotes'
import retextStringify from 'retext-stringify'

const file = readSync('example.txt')

unified()
  .use(retextEnglish)
  .use(retextQuotes)
  .use(retextStringify)
  .process(file)
  .then((file) => {
    console.error(reporter(file))
  })

Now, running node example yields:

example.txt
  1:12-1:13  warning  Expected a smart quote: `“`, not `"`       quote       retext-quotes
  1:26-1:27  warning  Expected a smart quote: `‘`, not `'`       quote       retext-quotes
  1:33-1:34  warning  Expected a smart quote: `’`, not `'`       quote       retext-quotes
    2:5-2:6  warning  Expected a smart apostrophe: `’`, not `'`  apostrophe  retext-quotes
  2:22-2:23  warning  Expected a smart quote: `”`, not `"`       quote       retext-quotes

⚠ 5 warnings

This plugin can be configured to prefer “straight” quotes instead:

   .use(retextEnglish)
-  .use(retextQuotes)
+  .use(retextQuotes, {preferred: 'straight'})
   .use(retextStringify)

Now, running node example again would yield:

no issues found

You can also pass in different markers that count as “smart”:

   .use(retextEnglish)
-  .use(retextQuotes)
+  .use(retextQuotes, {smart: ['«»', '‹›']})
   .use(retextStringify)

Running node example a final time yields:

example.txt
  1:12-1:13  warning  Expected a smart quote: `«`, not `"`       quote       retext-quotes
  1:26-1:27  warning  Expected a smart quote: `‹`, not `'`       quote       retext-quotes
  1:33-1:34  warning  Expected a smart quote: `›`, not `'`       quote       retext-quotes
    2:5-2:6  warning  Expected a smart apostrophe: `’`, not `'`  apostrophe  retext-quotes
  2:22-2:23  warning  Expected a smart quote: `»`, not `"`       quote       retext-quotes

⚠ 5 warnings

API

This package exports no identifiers. The default export is retextQuotes.

unified().use(retextQuotes[, options])

Check quotes and apostrophes. Emit warnings when they don’t match the preferred style.

This plugin knows about apostrophes as well and prefers ' when preferred: 'straight', and ’ otherwise.

The values in straight and smart can be one or two characters. When two, the first character determines the opening quote and the second the closing quote at that level. When one, both the opening and closing quote are that character.

The order in which the preferred quotes appear in their respective list determines which quotes to use at which level of nesting. So, to prefer ‘’ at the first level of nesting, and “” at the second, pass: smart: ['‘’', '“”'].

If quotes are nested deeper than the given amount of quotes, the markers wrap around: a third level of nesting when using smart: ['«»', '‹›'] should have double guillemets, a fourth single, a fifth double again, etc.

options.preferred

Style of quotes to prefer ('smart' or 'straight', default: 'smart').

options.straight

List of quotes to see as “straight” (Array.<string>, default: ['"', '\'']).

options.smart

List of quotes to see as “smart” (Array.<string>, default: ['“”', '‘’']).

Messages

Each message is emitted as a VFileMessage on file, with the following fields:

message.source

Name of this plugin ('retext-quotes').

message.ruleId

Category of message ('apostrophe' or 'quote')

message.actual

Current not ok character (string).

message.expected

Suggested replacement character (Array.<string>).

Related

• retext-contractions — Check apostrophe use in contractions
• retext-diacritics — Check for proper use of diacritics
• retext-sentence-spacing — Check spacing (one or two spaces) between sentences

Contribute

See contributing.md in retextjs/.github for ways to get started. See support.md for ways to get help.

This project has a code of conduct. By interacting with this repository, organization, or community you agree to abide by its terms.

License

MIT © Titus Wormer