Subject: Re: bug#79470: [PATCH] backward-sentence: Fix inaccuracy in manual's description

From: ERIC Frederickson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2025 13:20:37 -0500

On Fri, Sep 19, 2025 at 1:14 AM Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> wrote:

>> When describing the behavior of 'backward-sentence', the manual
>> states that this command leaves point "just before the first
>> character of the sentence".  This is incorrect, as
>> 'backward-sentence' actually leaves point _on_ the first character
>> of the sentence.
>
> In Emacs, point cannot be _on_ a character, it is always _between_
> two characters.  The Emacs user manual says:
>
>      By default, the cursor in the selected window is drawn as a solid
>   block and appears to be _on_ a character, but you should think of
>   point as _between_ two characters; it is situated _before_ the
>   character under the cursor.  For example, if your text looks like
>   ‘frob’ with the cursor over the ‘b’, then point is between the ‘o’
>   and the ‘b’.  If you insert the character ‘!’ at that position,
>   the result is ‘fro!b’, with point between the ‘!’ and the ‘b’.
>   Thus, the cursor remains over the ‘b’, as before.

Understood.  Thanks for explaining.  I'm surprised that I wasn't aware
of this key difference between point and the cursor. I had thought
that point was simply a synonym for "cursor". Misunderstanding fixed.

> So you should understand the "before the first character" part of
> what the manual says in this context.
>
> So I don't think what the manual says is inaccurate.

Yes.  Apologies for the amateur mistake.

>> Also: I hope that I'm not cluttering the mailing list with too many
>> small patches sent close together.  I've happened to have a good
>> deal of free time this week and have been enjoying trying to make
>> some improvements to my favorite program.  If anything I've been
>> doing lately has been causing too much noise for anyone, please do
>> let me know what kind of conduct is best appreciated around here,
>> and I'll do my best to align with that.
>
> No problems here, feel free to submit any issue you think is worthy
> of discussing.

Sounds good.

Thanks for bearing with me on this thread,
--
Eric Frederickson