Re: auto-fill breaks line too early

[Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org>]

"mandar.mitra" <mandar.mitra@gmail.com> writes:

Hi Mandar,

> I turn on auto-fill-mode, place cursor on i (for insight) and hit C-x f to
> set fill column to 73. Then I go to the end of the line and hit space. This
> produces:
>
> --------------------
> A study of the number of relevant documents for queries may provide some
> insights about the collections when juxtaposed across the FIRE
> years. Voorhees and  
> --------------------
>
> Why does auto-fill break the line before years instead of after?

That's because emacs thinks "years." is an abbreviation.  If you'd use
two spaces after a dot ending a sentence, it'll work as you expected.

You can change this by setting this to nil.

,----[ C-h v sentence-end-double-space RET ]
| sentence-end-double-space is a variable defined in `paragraphs.el'.
| Its value is t
| 
|   This variable is safe as a file local variable if its value
|   satisfies the predicate `booleanp'.
| 
| Documentation:
| Non-nil means a single space does not end a sentence.
| This is relevant for filling.  See also `sentence-end-without-period'
| and `colon-double-space'.
| 
| This value is used by the function `sentence-end' to construct the
| regexp describing the end of a sentence, when the value of the variable
| `sentence-end' is nil.  See Info node `(elisp)Standard Regexps'.
| 
| You can customize this variable.
`----

However, keep in mind that then the sentence moving commands like `M-a'
and `M-e' also stop at real abbreviations like in "bla, bla, etc. bla
bla."

If you check some messages here on the list, you'll see that most
long-time emacs users have two spaces after the dot ending a sentence.
Ditto in this message.  Now you know why.

Bye,
Tassilo