does emacs wrap lines that are exactly 80 characters long??

does emacs wrap lines that are exactly 80 characters long??

[Christian Seberino]

I don't know what this means but Python style guide says to set Emacs to 79
character long lines....

    There are still many devices around that are limited to 80
    character lines; plus, limiting windows to 80 characters makes it
    possible to have several windows side-by-side.  The default
    wrapping on such devices looks ugly.  Therefore, please limit all
    lines to a maximum of 79 characters (Emacs wraps lines that are
    exactly 80 characters long).  For flowing long blocks of text
    (docstrings or comments), limiting the length to 72 characters is
    recommended.

I don't seem to have a problem with 80 char long lines.  Maybe I'm missing something
here??

Chris

Re: does emacs wrap lines that are exactly 80 characters long??

[Barry Margolin]

In article <bf23f78f.0310291130.16f9c787@posting.google.com>,
Christian Seberino <seberino@spawar.navy.mil> wrote:
>I don't know what this means but Python style guide says to set Emacs to 79
>character long lines....
>
>    There are still many devices around that are limited to 80
>    character lines; plus, limiting windows to 80 characters makes it
>    possible to have several windows side-by-side.  The default
>    wrapping on such devices looks ugly.  Therefore, please limit all
>    lines to a maximum of 79 characters (Emacs wraps lines that are
>    exactly 80 characters long).  For flowing long blocks of text
>    (docstrings or comments), limiting the length to 72 characters is
>    recommended.
>
>I don't seem to have a problem with 80 char long lines.  Maybe I'm
>missing something
>here??

What size is your window?  The comment is probably referring to Emacs being
used on a traditional 24x80 terminal.  With a window system, you can change
the window size, and the wrapping will be appropriate to that size.

Also, prior to Emacs 21, Emacs wasted a column for the "\" character that's
used to indicate that a line has wrapped (Emacs 21 replaced this with a
marker closer to the window border).  So a line that's exactly the window's
width would be wrapped -- the first n-1 characters would be on the line,
then there would be a "\", and then the next line would contain the nth
character.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barry.margolin@level3.com
Level(3), Woburn, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group.

Re: does emacs wrap lines that are exactly 80 characters long??

[Christian Seberino]

So if I understand you correctly, 80 char long lines WERE a problem
in 80 char long windows PRIOR TO VERSION 21  because of the slash at the end??

But, in current version of Emacs and beyond this is not a problem
anymore and I don't need to have <= 79 char wide l lines??

Chris

Barry Margolin <barry.margolin@level3.com> wrote in message news:<f1Vnb.292$lK3.9@news.level3.com>...
> In article <bf23f78f.0310291130.16f9c787@posting.google.com>,
> Christian Seberino <seberino@spawar.navy.mil> wrote:
> >I don't know what this means but Python style guide says to set Emacs to 79
> >character long lines....
> >
> >    There are still many devices around that are limited to 80
> >    character lines; plus, limiting windows to 80 characters makes it
> >    possible to have several windows side-by-side.  The default
> >    wrapping on such devices looks ugly.  Therefore, please limit all
> >    lines to a maximum of 79 characters (Emacs wraps lines that are
> >    exactly 80 characters long).  For flowing long blocks of text
> >    (docstrings or comments), limiting the length to 72 characters is
> >    recommended.
> >
> >I don't seem to have a problem with 80 char long lines.  Maybe I'm
> >missing something
> >here??
> 
> What size is your window?  The comment is probably referring to Emacs being
> used on a traditional 24x80 terminal.  With a window system, you can change
> the window size, and the wrapping will be appropriate to that size.
> 
> Also, prior to Emacs 21, Emacs wasted a column for the "\" character that's
> used to indicate that a line has wrapped (Emacs 21 replaced this with a
> marker closer to the window border).  So a line that's exactly the window's
> width would be wrapped -- the first n-1 characters would be on the line,
> then there would be a "\", and then the next line would contain the nth
> character.

Re: does emacs wrap lines that are exactly 80 characters long??

[Stefan Monnier]

> So if I understand you correctly, 80 char long lines WERE a problem in 80
> char long windows PRIOR TO VERSION 21  because of the slash at the end??

Actually, it's still the same problem, just slightly different.  With an 80
char line, all 80 chars are displayed on the same line, but the line is
wrapped nevertheless (you'll see the little curled arrows on both sides of
the line and the next line is use to display "the rest" which in this case
is empty).
The reason for this empty line is basically just in order to have a place to
put the cursor when it's at the end of the line.  Hopefully some day someone
will come forward to write the code necessary to fix that (by displaying the
cursor in the fringe, for example).


        Stefan

Re: does emacs wrap lines that are exactly 80 characters long??

[Arthur Davis]

Even though the extra column exists to give the long line wrap
indication (which is an improvement, I agree), emacs still displays an
additional, blank line below the 80 char line.  This has always been
an irritation to me that I have just learned to ignore.  However, is
there something that I can set to cause emacs to not display a new
line until it actually contains characters from a line wrap?  Showing
the cursor on the first column of the new line is fine, but if I
pressed return at the end of an 80 character line, I would want the
cursor to stay put.

But regarding the quote from the original post referring to long lines
in program code, I couldn't agree more.  It makes code *very*
unreadable when lines wrap 4 and 5 (or more) times in the window.  A
few characters wrapped to the next line are occasionally tolerable,
but I still feel that there is rarely a time when you are unable to
keep lines within the 80 character limit, assuming you don't use
8-character tab widths.

Arthur

Christian Seberino writes:
 > So if I understand you correctly, 80 char long lines WERE a problem
 > in 80 char long windows PRIOR TO VERSION 21  because of the slash at the end??
 > 
 > But, in current version of Emacs and beyond this is not a problem
 > anymore and I don't need to have <= 79 char wide l lines??
 > 
 > Chris
 > 
 > Barry Margolin <barry.margolin@level3.com> wrote in message news:<f1Vnb.292$lK3.9@news.level3.com>...
 > > In article <bf23f78f.0310291130.16f9c787@posting.google.com>,
 > > Christian Seberino <seberino@spawar.navy.mil> wrote:
 > > >I don't know what this means but Python style guide says to set Emacs to 79
 > > >character long lines....
 > > >
 > > >    There are still many devices around that are limited to 80
 > > >    character lines; plus, limiting windows to 80 characters makes it
 > > >    possible to have several windows side-by-side.  The default
 > > >    wrapping on such devices looks ugly.  Therefore, please limit all
 > > >    lines to a maximum of 79 characters (Emacs wraps lines that are
 > > >    exactly 80 characters long).  For flowing long blocks of text
 > > >    (docstrings or comments), limiting the length to 72 characters is
 > > >    recommended.
 > > >
 > > >I don't seem to have a problem with 80 char long lines.  Maybe I'm
 > > >missing something
 > > >here??
 > > 
 > > What size is your window?  The comment is probably referring to Emacs being
 > > used on a traditional 24x80 terminal.  With a window system, you can change
 > > the window size, and the wrapping will be appropriate to that size.
 > > 
 > > Also, prior to Emacs 21, Emacs wasted a column for the "\" character that's
 > > used to indicate that a line has wrapped (Emacs 21 replaced this with a
 > > marker closer to the window border).  So a line that's exactly the window's
 > > width would be wrapped -- the first n-1 characters would be on the line,
 > > then there would be a "\", and then the next line would contain the nth
 > > character.
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