Re: A clarification on the Emacs Tutorial

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Sivaram Neelakantan <nsivaram.net@gmail.com>
> Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2011 23:20:30 +0530
> 
> So, I had some free time and was going through the tutorial and came
> to this part
> 
> Note that a single C-k kills the contents of the line, and a second
> C-k kills the line itself, and makes all the other lines move up.  C-k
> treats a numeric argument specially: it kills that many lines AND
> their contents.  This is not mere repetition.  C-u 2 C-k kills two
> lines and their newlines; typing C-k twice would not do that.
> 
> Right, I *know* this,OK?  I understand this perfectly but could you
> tell me what's that sentence "This is not mere repetition" for?  I
> can't see what that sentence is trying to say in context.  If I remove
> that sentence it makes perfect sense but maddeningly I can't figure
> what that sentence is trying to convey.

That sentence is trying to convey that "C-u 2 C-k" is not the same as
"C-k C-k".  The "normal" effect of "C-u 2" before a command is to
perform that command twice; the text is trying to explain that in this
case, "C-u 2" is not just repetition of "C-k" 2 times.