[tex-k] TeX error exit upon \showthe

[Hartmut Henkel]

I'm wondering about the following, in TeX and pdfTeX:

Upon \showthe\wd0 one gets e. g.

> 5.55994pt.
l.13 \showthe\wd0

? h
This isn't an error message; I'm just \showing something.

So it's only an informal message, harmless, definitely not an error! But
in tex.web still the procedure error is called from procedure
show_whatever. Consequently TeX or pdfTeX end with uexit(1), which means
FAIL, so that e. g. a make would quit after such a TeX run. It looks
wrong to me, but it is in the TeX core... Can anybody give me a short
hint about this? Thanks a lot.

Regards, Hartmut