[bug #58581] doc/groff.texi, man/groff_font.5.man: spacewidth value is missing units

[Dave]

URL:
  <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?58581>

                 Summary: doc/groff.texi, man/groff_font.5.man: spacewidth
value is missing units
                 Project: GNU troff
            Submitted by: barx
            Submitted on: Tue 16 Jun 2020 02:04:59 AM CDT
                Category: Font devps
                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:

Both doc/groff.texi and man/groff_font.5.man document a key in the font file
called "spacewidth" by saying only: "The normal width of a space is n."  This
leaves the reader wondering: n _what_?

Looking at the values of spacewidth in the various prepackaged font files:


grep ^spacewidth font/devps/*


leads only to more questions.  The space in TR being (as I understand it)
0.25m, the spacewidth value of 250 implies the unit is 1/1000 of an m (or 1/10
of an M).

But CR has a spacewidth value of 600.  Being a monospace font, the space
should have the same width as every other character in the font, which by
definition should be 1m, not 0.6m.

Nonetheless, experimentally, the TR space does appear to be 0.25m and the CR
space 0.6m:


.nf
M M M M M M M M M M
M\h'0.25m'M\h'0.25m'M\h'0.25m'M\h'0.25m'M\h'0.25m'M\h'0.25m'M\h'0.25m'M\h'0.25m'M\h'0.25m'M
.fam C
M M M M M M M M M M
M\h'0.6m'M\h'0.6m'M\h'0.6m'M\h'0.6m'M\h'0.6m'M\h'0.6m'M\h'0.6m'M\h'0.6m'M\h'0.6m'M


Really, the info file and groff_font(5) should just tell me the units so I
don't have to guess and/or experiment.




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