Re: annoying warnings with makeinfo 4.0d

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Werner LEMBERG <address@hidden>
> Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2001 09:12:29 +0100 (CET)
> 
> in the `doc' directory, I get warnings like
> 
>   groff.texinfo:3030: warning: `@' follows defined name address@hidden'}'
>                       instead of whitespace.
> 
> A sample of the offending lines is
> 
>   @Defesc {\\A, ', ident, '}
> 
> with
> 
>   @macro Defesc{name, delimI, arg, delimII}
>   @esindex \name\
>   @deffn Escape @address@hidden@t{\delimII\}
>   @end macro
> 
> I *must not* have a whitespace after @t{\A'} according to the groff
> syntax!

This warning is issued because texinfo.tex doesn't get along with
such cases.  Here's the relevant excerpt:

  /* It's easy to write @defun foo(arg1 arg2), but this is misparsed by
     texinfo.tex.  Warn about it.  */
  if (*scan_args && **scan_args && !whitespace (**scan_args))
    {
      warning ("`%c' follows defined name `%s' instead of whitespace",
              **scan_args, defined_name);
    }

So my question would be: does this work in the printed version of the
manual?  The comment above seems to indicate that only the
parentheses without whitespace make trouble here, so perhaps we could
only test for that specific case?

Karl, could you please tell what exactly confuses texinfo.tex in this
case?

However, in general, Werner, I'd say that your use of @deffn surprises
me.  You effectively disable all its features; for example, you use
@var instead of letting @deffn do that for you (which it only can do
if the arguments stand out surrounded by whitespace).  You also
provide your own indexing directives.  Since you don't use any
features of @deffn, I wonder why do you need it at all?  Perhaps just
use @table or something, and solve the warning problem as well?