[tex-k] trouble with webmac21.tex

[Joachim Kuebart]

Hi Karl,

On Sun, 21 Feb 2021 at 00:51, Karl Berry <karl at freefriends.org> wrote:
>
>     Why was webmac changed?
>
> (after some research) Because DEK accepted Andreas S's report that the
> headline in the "Names of the sections" list at the end of a web
> document should not have the number of the last section (in practice, of
> the Index). Andreas pointed out that cwebmac.tex has always omitted the
> section number from "Names of the sections", and proposed a patch for
> webmac.tex to do the same.

Thank you very much for your research and this explanation.

I am now able to see the difference, indeed with webmac 4.2 the names
of sections (from p 550) has no section number. This fix was undone by
my previous suggestion. Let me propose another change to webmac 4.2
which

  - preserves the desirable property that names of sections
    has no section number, and
  - works in the presence of \maybe=\iffalse with 30000 words
    of memory.

diff --git a/lib/webmac.tex b/lib/webmac.tex
--- a/lib/webmac.tex
+++ b/lib/webmac.tex
@@ -81,18 +81,17 @@
 \outer\def\N#1.#2.{\MN#1.\vfil\eject % beginning of starred section
   \def\rhead{\uppercase{\ignorespaces#2}} % define running headline
   \message{*\modno} % progress report
   \edef\next{\write\cont{\Z{#2}{\modno}{\the\pageno}}}\next % to contents file
   \ifon\startsection{\bf\ignorespaces#2.\quad}\ignorespaces}
 \def\MN#1.{\par % common code for \M, \N
   {\xdef\modstar{#1}\let\*=\empty\xdef\modno{#1}}% remove \* from section name
   \ifx\modno\modstar \onmaybe \else\ontrue \fi
-  \mark{{{\tensy x}\modno}{\rhead}}}
-  % each \mark is {section reference or null}{group title}
+  \mark{{\tensy x}\modno}}
 \def\O#1{\hbox{\rm\char'23\kern-.2em\it#1\/\kern.05em}} % octal constant
 \def\P{\rightskip=0pt plus 100pt minus 10pt % go into Pascal mode
   \sfcode`;=3000
   \pretolerance 10000
   \hyphenpenalty 10000 \exhyphenpenalty 10000
   \global\ind=2 \1\ \unskip}
 \def\Q{\rightskip=0pt % get out of Pascal mode
   \sfcode`;=1500 \pretolerance 200 \hyphenpenalty 50 \exhyphenpenalty 50 }
@@ -116,31 +115,29 @@
 \let\*=*

 \def\onmaybe{\let\ifon=\maybe} \let\maybe=\iftrue
 \newif\ifon \newif\iftitle \newif\ifpagesaved
 \def\lheader{\mainfont\the\pageno\eightrm\qquad\rhead
   \hfill\title\qquad\mainfont\topsecno} % top line on left-hand pages
 \def\rheader{\mainfont\topsecno\eightrm\qquad\title\hfill
   \rhead\qquad\mainfont\the\pageno} % top line on right-hand pages
-\def\topsecno{\expandafter\takeone\topmark}
-\def\takeone#1#2{#1}
-\def\taketwo#1#2{#2}
+\let\topsecno=\topmark
 \def\nullsec{\eightrm\kern-2em} % the \kern-2em cancels \qquad in headers
 \def\page{\box255 }
 \def\normaloutput#1#2#3{\ifodd\pageno\hoffset=\pageshift\fi
   \shipout\vbox{
     \vbox to\fullpageheight{
       \iftitle\global\titlefalse
       \else\hbox to\pagewidth{\vbox to10pt{}\ifodd\pageno #3\else#2\fi}\fi
       \vfill#1}} % parameter #1 is the page itself
   \global\advance\pageno by1}

 \def\rhead{\.{WEB} OUTPUT} % this running head is reset by starred sections
-\mark{\noexpand\nullsec{\rhead}}
+\mark{\noexpand\nullsec}
 \def\title{} % an optional title can be set by the user
 \def\topofcontents{\centerline{\titlefont\title}
   \vfill} % this material will start the table of contents page
 \def\botofcontents{\vfill} % this material will end the table of contents page
 \def\contentspagenumber{0} % default page number for table of contents
 \newdimen\pagewidth \pagewidth=6.5in % the width of each page
 \newdimen\pageheight \pageheight=8.7in % the height of each page
 \newdimen\fullpageheight \fullpageheight=9in % page height including headlines


Best,

Joachim