Hum, a hyphen is still an entity of its own (it may be even a short, slanted dash in some fonts), then there's the en-dash for association (e.g. "ZDF – Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen"), and there's the "Gedankenstrich", which performs more like a separator. Three typographical entities to express three different concepts. (But there's a tendency of mixing the en-dash with spaces and the "Gedankenstrich", as the latter also comes with surrounding spaces, which may appear overly exaggerated in some fonts.)