>> The documentation says the following.
>>
>> ‘@thissectionnum’
>> Expands to the number of the current section.
>>
>> Assuming we are in the second section of chapter three, this value
>> should be 2. However, `texinfo.tex` does something else:
>> `@thissectionnum` holds a string that combines the chapter and
>> section number with a full dot inbetween, i.e., ‘3.2’.
>>
>> IMHO this is a bug. If the variables held numerical values, it
>> would be easy to synthesize such a string with
>>
>> ```
>> @thischapternum.@thissectionnum
>> ```
>
> That would be a change in behaviour.
It's always the question whether to change documentation so that it
fits the actual behaviour or vice versa...
> These commands appear to have been introduced in 2007 and we should
> not change them.
If so then please fix the documentation to not talk about a 'number'
but rather a string that consists of chapter and section number,
separated by a full stop.
> It would usually be more useful to put the full section number
> (including the chaper number) in the header or footer of a page. If
> it is really useful to be able to use the section number component
> on its own in a header or a footer, we should use a new command for
> this.
Then please do so – and yes, it is useful for at least two reasons.
* There might be locales that don't use a full dot to separate the
chapter and section number with a dot in a header (Chinese comes to
my mind).
* If you want a heading style like
Chapter 3: foo, Section 2: bar
Werner
