[XeTeX] \botmark and \firstmark not working for me ...

[Philip Taylor (Webmaster, Ret'd)]

I would start by looking at your comparison with \null, Ron :
if you look at TB, p.~351, you will see that \null is defined
as \hbox {}, which is a pretty unlikely value for a null mark.

** Phil.
--------
Ron Aaron wrote:

> I'm trying to get a range of numbers (of footnotes) for each page.  So my 'footnote' macro does "\mark{n}" right before the footnote symbol in the body text.  Then, in my "output" routine I'm trying to get the list of footnotes:
>
> 	\ifx\firstmark\null\count0=0\else\count0=\number\firstmark\fi
> 	\ifx\botmark\null\count1=0\else\count1=\number\botmark\fi
> 	\message{Marks on page range: \number\count0/\number\count1^^J}
>
>
> I'm always getting back "0" even though the marks are inserted.
>
> This is driving me crazy -- does anyone have a clue?  I'm using XeTeX 3.1415926-2.2-0.9995.2 (TeX Live 2009/Debian), if that makes a difference.
>
> Thanks!
> Ron
>
>