{INDEX} "\p" field switch anomaly

[ChrisGreaves]

MSWord2003 help files say for the {INDEX \p} field-switch that it:
"Compiles an index for the specified letters. The field { INDEX \p a-m } generates an index for only the letters A through M. To include entries that begin with characters other than letters, use an exclamation point (!). The index generated by { INDEX \p !--t } includes any special characters, as well as the letters A through T."
This appears to be not so. To test it I modified the generic {INDEX} field in a 100+ page document which contains {XE} fields for all 26 letters of the alphabet.

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Here I have asked for only the first thirteen letters of the alphabet, a through m. My results in these tests seem to indicate no difference whether the letter range is enclosed in double-quotes ("a-m") or not (a-m).

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The index appears for letters b-m. The index stops after "m" entries, but does not include the numerous "a" entries.

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I eliminated the \p switch to check that the a entries re-appeared. They did.
Then I used the range "!-m". The exclamation mark is used as a wild-card here (I am still wondering what is wrong with * and ?) and the entries for "a" re-appeared. I have no {XE} fields for symbols other than the alphabetics, so I don't know whether the index would have included {XE} entries for punctuation symbols.

I ran one more test with "INDEX \p b-m" and the index began with the letter "c".

It seems as if the MSWord2003 code tests for greater-than, rather than greater-then-or-equal to.
Jeers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

I have no {XE} fields for symbols other than the alphabetics, so I don't know whether the index would have included {XE} entries for punctuation symbols.

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The {XE} that uses the wildcard symbol (exclamation mark) appears to be ignored.from {INDEX INDEX \p !-m}, but "!" sorts lower (first in list) than the other three symbols I used, so I still can't say categorically that Word ignores the lowest (first) symbol in a range.

"!" is ASC(33) and perhaps was chosen as a wildcard because it is the lowest non-space symbol likely to appear in MSWord2.0.
That suggests that the programmer might have decided to discard the first item in a range of \p symbols on the grounds that "we couldn't include our wildcard symbol in this code".
Cheers
Chris

[HansV]

The problem appears to have been fixed in Word 2019

[ChrisGreaves]

The problem appears to have been fixed in Word 2019

Thanks Hans.
I think

Cheers
Chris