Re: Texinfo macros and m4

[Werner LEMBERG]

> Regarding macros in general.  I've been trying, and I have become
> skeptical that there is any way to devise a new Texinfo macro
> command that does not run afoul of many of the same issues.  In
> particular, TeX cannot precisely control behavior at newlines, and
> newline-delimited commands are a big part of Texinfo.  Highly
> unfortunate.

What about implementing a solution with luatex?  Would that work?

> Patrice and I haven't had a chance to discuss this in detail yet,
> but at present it seems to me that the most robust plan would be to
> simply provide an option to run the document through m4 before
> Texinfo.

Sounds reasonable.  However, if you do that, m4 *must* become part of
TeXLive! 

> Aside from a cmdline option, it also occurs to me that we could
> support a magic string on the \input texinfo line that the
> processors could detect, so that the need for m4 would be
> self-specified in the file.  E.g.,
>
>   \input texinfo   @c -*-texinfo-*- `m4needed'

Hmm.  Why not also using Emacs file variable syntax for indicating m4?


    Werner