Re: [bug #38795] texi2any makes CR in output when input is mixed CR-LF and LF files

[Vincent Belaïche]

Eli Zaretskii a écrit :
> > Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:05:55 +0000
> > From: Vincent Belaïche <address@hidden>
> >
> > There must not be any CR in the Info files, only LF.
> >     
>
> ?? Why?
>
>
>   
Looping also through address@hidden for info.

1) install-info is unable to handle them --- at least the version of 
install-info which I have.

$ install-info --version
=> install-info (GNU texinfo) 4.11
=>
=> Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
=> License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later 
<http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
=> This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
=> There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Some time ago, I had proposed a patch to install-info to overcome this, 
but at that time I was replied that CRLF should not be used in info files.

2) So it seems that this is not a bug of install-info, see Texinfo 
manual `(texinfo) Conventions' info node:

  * Separate paragraphs with one or more blank lines.  Currently
    Texinfo only recognizes newline characters as end of line, not the
    CRLF sequence used on some systems; so a "blank line" means exactly
    two consecutive newlines.  Sometimes blank lines are useful or
    convenient in other cases as well; you can use the '@noindent' to
    inhibit paragraph indentation if required (*note @noindent::).


Depending on the version of Texinfo, CRLF will be handled differently 
when converting to info files, they may be converted to LF, or not.

Recent version of Texinfo do the CRLF -> LF conversion, which is a good 
thing in my opinion (Texinfo files should be text file), this is why I 
placed the blame on Texinfo, whereas strictly speaking this is a bug of 
BBDB: if they had paid attention to Texinfo documentation, BBDB people 
should have set the git repo so that all Texi files are with LF  EOL and 
binary.

My personal opinion is the following one:
* That anti-CRLF Texinfo way is completely non-sensical: Texinfo files 
should be handled as text files, because any version control system will 
be better at comparing version, and at compressing them together. So I 
am in opinion that BBDB is not to blame (well they still could do 
something for people on MSWindows and with older version of Texinfo do 
not have any problems).
* So the Texinfo system should be completely CRLF-proof, be it with 
makeinfo converting CRLF to LF, or with install-info handling properly 
CRLF in detecting dir-category.
* The argument that CRLF is labelled as not supported in the doc is a 
bit MSWindows-unfriendly (why?), this also means that all the people 
writing documentation in Texinfo will have more problems in making this 
doc available to Windows-victims.

  Vincent.

BR,
  Vincent.