On Fri, 25 Mar 2016 08:04:32 -0700 (PDT), in message alpine.LNX.2.11.1603250755300.8249@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:
> While I regularly use emacs I'm not as expert with it as are many > of you. Perhaps your expertise can explain an emacs paragraph > formatting behavior that seems anomalous to me. > > Line length is set to 78 characters, and I use M-q to reformat a > paragraph when I've made changes. Most lines are filled to column 78, > or less, but now and then a word that could fit on a line without > exceeding column 78 is placed on the following line. I'd like to > understand why. > > Here are two such lines as an example: > > measures are difficult to interpret as suitable for fish and > wildlife. Biological-based standards of water quality are more useful > > The 'd' in "and" is on column 59; when I place "wildlife" on that > line the space after the '.' is in column 70. So, why is the \n > placed between "and" and "wildlife." when I reformat using M-q? Hi Rich, What is 'sentence-end-double-space' set to? I suspect it's 't', which is what it's set to here, and is the default. I noticed that you only used one space after the period. When I tried formatting your lines with 'M-q', I got the same results as you did. When I put a second space after the period and reformatted, I got what you probably expected. I.e., the first line ends with the period at column 69 and the \n at column 70. The only thing I can suggest is either change your typing habits (which is hard to do, I know), or change the value of 'sentence-end-double-space'. Since Emacs uses that variable (among other things) to determine where a sentence ends, that might do what you need. My guess, and it's only a guess, is that Emacs saw "wildlife. Biological" as a sort of contraction, like "Dr. Smith", and refused to break the two words apart. Which is correct, but not what you were expecting in this case. I just tried an experiment: 70 "a"s, followed by a space, followed by the string "Dr. Smith". I used 'M-q' to reformat the line, and lo-and-behold, "Dr. Smith" ended up on the next line, even though there was room for the "Dr." on the first line. I then set 'sentence-end-double-space' to 'nil', and tried reformatting the line again. It worked the way you probably want: "Dr." ended the first line, and "Smith" started the second. Note, however, that in this case, this is the _wrong_ thing to do. A (contracted) title and the associated name should _not_ be broken across lines. What would I do? Use two spaces after a sentence. But then, I come from the old typewriter school that teaches that method. I also use a monospace font (DejaVu Sans Mono, to be precise), so that it looks like typewritten text. Emacs always behaves nicely when I do that. Anyway, I hope my ramblings help. --Dale -- "Have a place for everything and keep the thing somewhere else; this is not advice, it is merely custom." -- Mark Twain
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