[latexrefman] latex-info Lengths

[Vincent Belaïche]

Hello,

Concerning lengths…

I think we should be more clear about scope of defining length / counter 
/ macros, and compare LaTeX to TeX, and how LaTeX adds on top of TeX.

For instance LaTeX counters are defined globally contrary to TeX counters.

LaTeX length and macros are to that respect (ie as far as scope is 
concerned) the same as TeX lengths and macros AFAIK, just the LaTeX 
interface makes more consistency checking, and as for lengths I  am not 
sure about the allocator (that defines some control sequence \somelength 
as \dimen<xxx>) is the same between TeX and LaTeX.

Also, the info node about predefined counters \day, \month, etc… is 
confusing because these are TeX counter, not LaTeX counters, but the 
manual does not speak ever of TeX counters. This node should explain 
that one can fix the today date from the command line as follows:

pdflatex \day2\month6\year2018 \input mydocument

As far as dates are concerned, mentioning datetime2 rather than datetime 
is probably more « à la page » (meaning « up to date », but I wanted to 
teach you the French phrase for this…).

As far as length units are concerned, it might be good to say that the 
difference of pt and bp, is that pt makes unit conversion easier — but I 
can't remember why ;-/ …

   Vincent.


Le 31/05/2018 à 18:48, Hefferon, Jim S. a écrit :
> The next section.
>
> Adjusted the definitions in Lengths, adding examples and error messages.  Because of \newlength also did the current doc's Definitions.  There, also adjusted the synopses for \newcommand.
>
> I'll also note that I looked it up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radius, and it does say "conventional."  :-)
>
> Jim
>
> -----------
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>    -- John Kenneth Galbraith in The Great Crash, 1929
>