On Sat, Mar 14, 2026 at 06:02:16AM +0000, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
>
> > At the start of a line, a tab character is treated the same as a
> > space character, i.e. it is ignored.
>
> But a space character at the beginning of a line is not ignored in an
> `@example` environment!
>
> Attached is a file that shows various combinations, together with an
> image of it. For me it's strange that a leading tab gets ignored
> while a tab in any other situation is treated the same as a space (all
> within an `@example` environment).
>
>
> Werner
Yes, I see that in an @example environment, the category code of space
is changed so that spaces are all printed, with no skipping spaces
at the beginning of a line or treating multiple spaces as a single space.
Nothing is done with tab characters, though - they are still treated
as spaces are treated by default.
I do not see a big problem here as the manual tells you not to use tab
characters anyway.
I have changed the text to the following:
Do not use tabs in the lines of an example! (Or anywhere else in
Texinfo, except in verbatim environments.) @TeX{} treats a tab as a
single space character, so any text following a tab on a line will not
be aligned as expected.
I feel it's better not to go into any more detail as it's possible that
there will be some even more obscure case where a tab character does not
behave exactly as described.
