The front of the buffer counts as position 1, one character later as 2, and so on. The next, larger number is the total number of characters in the buffer. Afterward in parentheses comes the position expressed as a percentage of the total size. The characters between those two positions are the accessible ones. See section Narrowing .
Some commands interpret the argument as a repetition count.
For example, giving an argument of ten to the key C-f moves forward ten characters instead of one. With these commands, no argument is equivalent to an argument of one. Negative arguments tell most such commands to move or act in the opposite direction. With C-u , you can type the argument digits without holding down shift keys. To type a negative argument, start with a minus sign.