# The badness value is always 10000

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


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. Dec 22 '13 at 0:10
• Thank you, egreg. I am deep and I didn't noticed that I am writing minus.
– Ömer
Dec 22 '13 at 0:24
• 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. Dec 22 '13 at 4:28

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.

\count255=0
\loop
\hbox to20pt{\hskip0pt plus \count255 pt\vrule height1pt width1pt}
\ifnum\count255<20
\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.