bug#2588: 23.0.90; Man buffer improperly formatted - wrong width

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>,  2588@emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com,  Drew 
> Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>
> Date: Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:43:39 -0400
> 
> > This is explained in the code comments: it's required to ensure that the
> > output of the manpage formatter has the same number of columns as the
> > Emacs window/frame.
> 
> Well, that part I understood, even without the comment ;-)
> The question is: what was the motivation to adjust the number of columns
> to that of the Emacs window/frame?

Does the following comment from man.el explain it to you?

          ;; This isn't strictly correct, since we don't know how
          ;; the page will actually be displayed, but it seems
          ;; reasonable.

Translation: don't have a better idea, so why not?