[tex-k] Minor Non-Technical Error in TeXbook

Jon Forrest nobozo at gmail.com
Fri Mar 15 18:21:14 CET 2019


(This is a minor quibble).

On Page 37 of the TeXbook (2nd printing, 1984) is the sentence

"It's not necessary for you to learn these code numbers;"

This should be

"It's not necessary for you to learn these category numbers;"

This sentence is referring to the display of the 16 character categories
shown above it. The numbers in this display are in a column labeled
"Category" - thus they're category numbers. At this point the word
"code" hasn't been used in this chapter.

An argument against my proposal is that later on in this chapter
the term "category code" is used. To be consistent, this should
be replaced by "category number" everywhere, but that might be
more than you're willing to consider.

Cordially,
Jon Forrest


More information about the tex-k mailing list