[bug #54101] documentation for .ss either incorrect or incomplete

[Dave]

URL:
  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?54101>

                 Summary: documentation for .ss either incorrect or incomplete
                 Project: GNU troff
            Submitted by: barx
            Submitted on: Tue 12 Jun 2018 01:46:21 AM CDT
                Category: Core
                Severity: 3 - Normal
              Item Group: Documentation
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
         Planned Release: None

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Details:

The documentation's .ss section states, "Initially both the WORD_SPACE_SIZE
and SENTENCE_SPACE_SIZE are 12.  In fill mode, the values specify the minimum
distance."

The latter sentence does not seem to be entirely accurate, in that a simple
test shows that WORD_SPACE_SIZE specifies a minimum distance while
SENTENCE_SPACE_SIZE specifies a fixed distance.  That is, if they were both
minimum distances, they should both be stretched when filling text.  But this
does not happen.  The input file:

Sentence one.
Sentence two.
Sentence three.\p

produces very large spaces between words, and that same size plus only a
normal space width between sentences.

Although sentence spaces do not stretch in this simple example, are there
cases where they do?

If not, the sentence claiming so in the documentation should be corrected. 
(Possible wording: "In fill mode, WORD_SPACE_SIZE specifies the minimum
distance.  The additional space added between sentences is always exactly
SENTENCE_SPACE_SIZE.")

If there are, it might be useful for the documentation to specify under what
circumstances this happens.




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