Re: Using macros in @item

[Karl Berry]

    Actually the whole process of asking makeinfo to perform the expansion
    is dubious.  

No kidding.

    For instance, is @table expected to allow for user defined macros?

Macros can't be used arbitrarily.  We all already know this to our
sorrow.  It is unfortunate, especially since there is no well-defined
way to know whether any given complicated construct will work or not.
Both texinfo.tex and makeinfo -E are fragile, in different ways.

Realistically, I am not going to be able to fix this any time soon, just
as I haven't been able to fix it for the last N years :(.  We knew there
were problems the moment we released them.  I wish I never had.

All I can say is, don't use macros when they cause problems.  Yes, the
redundant text (in your case at hand, for example) is annoying.  Maybe
preprocessing with m4 is the right thing to do :).

Personally I think the right approach is to use TeX's built-in \def.
Just have to change catcodes so that # is a parameter character again.
  @address@hidden blah #1 ... #2 ...}
That part should be straightforward.  Implementing in makeinfo, I don't
know.  Any volunteers :)?

I'll follow up to your other mail a little later.