Re: tabs in `@example`

Werner LEMBERG <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.tex.texinfo.bugs
Message-ID <[email protected]>
>> In the info file I read the following about `@example`.
>>
>>      Caution: Do not use tabs in the lines of an example!  (Or
>>      anywhere else in Texinfo, except in verbatim environments.)  TeX
>>      treats tabs as single spaces, and that is not what they look
>>      like.
>>
>> However, this is not fully correct.  Consider the following input
>> file.
>>
>> ```
>> \input texinfo
>>
>> @example
>> no leading space
>> 	leading tab	another tab
>>         eight leading spaces
>> @end example
>>
>> @bye
>> ```
>>
>> If processed with `texi2pdf`, the leading tab vanishes completely (as
>> shown in the image); it is not treated as a single space.
>
> Where does it say that _every_ tab is treated as a single space?

My report talks about `@example` environments, which displays leading
spaces.  If tabs are treated as single spaces, *of course* I do expect
that these single spaces are displayed.

I don't see an alternate interpretation of the sentence 'TeX treats
tabs as single spaces [...]'.  This is formulated in an absolute way,
so yes, it means *every* space according to my book.

Note that I actually don't care about TeX's behaviour with respect to
tabs in `@example` environments.  I just want to point out that the
implementation is not in sync with the documentation.


    Werner
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