Re: info --index not finding all indexed entries

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:17:15 +0200
> From: Ralf Wildenhues <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden, address@hidden
> 
> For functions or macros like above, where there is typically one
> definition in the manual but several potentially interesting places
> a user might want to look up, do you recommend putting only the
> actual definition in the function index @findex, and all other, more
> qualified ones, in the concept index @cindex, or would you say it's
> better to add all of them to the function index?

It doesn't really matter.  I suppose having them in @findex would be
slightly better.  Just remember that @findex entries are implicitly
put in @code, so you need something like

  @findex address@hidden, and bla-bla}

to get the rest of the text in the normal roman typeface.

> Then, I noticed that
>   @ftable
>   @item function(args)
>   ...
>   @end ftable
> 
> causes 'function(args)' to be indexed, not just 'function'.  Bug or
> feature?

Feature.  @ftable is documented to enter text of each @item into
@findex, so it does exactly what it's supposed to do.

I would argue that @ftable is inappropriate with such tables, you
should use an explicit @findex before each @item.  Or maybe the @item
should just say "function", it all depends on the context.

In general, @ftable is not for every table.  It's being abused here,
IMHO, probably because someone didn't want to bother to write a
separate @findex for the @item's which need that.

> If the latter, is there a way to avoid it without rewriting the
> whole (large) table to not use @ftable?

If you really need the args part there, I don't see any better way.

Do these @item's really need to be in the index?  Maybe they don't, in
which case you could simply replace @ftable with @table.

> More generally, is it possible to have @item's in an @ftable which
> aren't indexed (so I could override the index entry manually), and
> if not, any chance such functionality could be added?

That would be a nice extension.  I don't think makeinfo can do that
now.