The badness value is always 10000

Question

I use WinEdt8.1 to create my TeX files and I prefer PDFTeX instead of TeX or LaTeX. I noticed that when I create an underfull box (horizontal or vertical) the badness value is always 10000. For example in that code

\hbox to250pt{\hskip0pt minus50pt\vrule height1pt width249pt}

the badness value should be 0.0008 [97]:

L= 249 . . . l=250 => D=-1 < 0
r=-(D/Y)=1/50 => badness = min(100*r^3,10000)=0.0008

But it is always 10000. I am sure you can say something...

Welcome to TeX.SX! The glue inside the box has no stretchability. So the glue stretch ratio is infinite. — egreg, Dec 22 '13 at 00:10
Thank you, egreg. I am deep and I didn't noticed that I am writing minus. — Ömer, Dec 22 '13 at 00:24
Just so you know, pdftex is just an engine; it is separate from the idea of formats such as 'plain TeX' and 'LaTeX'. Other engines are tex, xetex, and luatex. — Sean Allred, Dec 22 '13 at 04:28

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 22 '13 at 00:28

The glue inside the box has no stretchability, but the material doesn't cover the stated width. The glue stretch ratio r is thus infinite and the shown badness is 10000.

If you add stretchability, then the badness decreases:

\count255=0
\loop
  \hbox to20pt{\hskip0pt plus \count255 pt\vrule height1pt width1pt}
  \ifnum\count255<20
  \advance\count255 by 1
\repeat

\bye

Here's the terminal output:

Underfull \hbox (badness 10000) detected at line 6
 |

Underfull \hbox (badness 10000) detected at line 6
 |

Underfull \hbox (badness 10000) detected at line 6
 |

Underfull \hbox (badness 10000) detected at line 6
 |

Underfull \hbox (badness 10000) detected at line 6
 |

Underfull \hbox (badness 5475) detected at line 6
 |

Underfull \hbox (badness 3168) detected at line 6
 |

Underfull \hbox (badness 1997) detected at line 6
 |

Underfull \hbox (badness 1337) detected at line 6
 |

The first nine boxes are considered underfull.

The badness value is always 10000

1 Answers1