Re: HTML bugs revisited

[Eli Zaretskii]

On Tue, 29 Jan 2002, Werner LEMBERG wrote:

> Please document this address@hidden'  behaviour of the HTML translator.

Although it's not my code, I'm too embarrassed about it to document
that ;-)  But if Karl thinks it should be documented, I will.

> > > Additionally the string `\n[ident]' is represented as
> > > 
> > >   <b><tt>\n[</tt></b><i><var>ident</var><tt>]</tt>
> > >   </i>
> > > 
> > > (embedded in a <td>...</td> construction).  This is not correct.
> > > It should rather be
> > > 
> > >   <b><tt>\n[</tt></b><i><var>ident</var><b><tt>]</tt></b>
> > 
> > I don't understand why do you think so.  @deffn formats only the
> > function's _name_ in bold, the rest are the function's arguments, so
> > they are formatted in slanted face, like TeX does with @var (since
> > arguments in the @def... commands have the implicit @var markup).
> 
> No.  I explicitly force @t:
> 
>   @macro Defesc{name, delimI, arg, delimII}
>   @deffn Escape @address@hidden@t{\delimII\}
>                                              ^^

Yes, you force @t, and makeinfo obeys:

  <b><tt>\n[</tt></b><i><var>ident</var><tt>]</tt>
  </i>                                  ^^^^ ^^^^^

Your problem is the <i>...</i> markup around the whole part after the
left bracket: that's what causes the slanted face.  This <i> markup is
there because of the implicit @var around the function arguments.  And
@t does not turn off @var, at least not in HTML.  You probably should
be able to do something like this (note the @r markup):

    @macro Defesc{name, delimI, arg, delimII}
    @deffn Escape @address@hidden@address@hidden

except that this doesn't work :-( due to the way @deffn and @r are
implemented in HTML mode.

> So it looks like a bug in makeinfo.

Not really a bug IMHO: it happens because you want to disable all the
features of the @def... commands except one: the fact that they flush
the Function (or Escape, or Macro, or whatever) thing all the way to
the right.  I think such tweaking goes well beyond the limitations of
the Texinfo language, as designed and implemented.  (I'm actually
surprised that it works as well as it does, since macros in
@def... commands are generally not supported.)

>   <b><tt>.SM</tt></b><i> [text]   
>   </i>
> 
> It should be
> 
>   <b><tt>.SM<//t></b> [<i>text</i>]
> 
> TeX handles the brackets specially, making them upright.

Well, you didn't send me the macro definitions for the TeX case, but I
think I do indeed see that TeX makes the brackets upright in similar 
situations.

Karl, is this due to some special handling of the brackets coded in
texinfo.tex?  Is it universal (i.e. [ and ] will always be typeset in
typewriter face, no matter where do we see them), or limited to some
special constructs, like the @def... commands?  I don't think it will
be easy to implement something like that in makeinfo, but I need to
know the extent of the feature to see how hard (or how easy) is it.