Re: [gnu-prog-discuss] the `dir' file

[Tom Tromey]

On another list, we were discussing the problems with putting all the
libc functions into "dir".

It's a usability issue because there are conflicts with program names.

Stefan> Having all the glibc functions in the toplevel `dir' is annoying.
Stefan> Well, you're talking about changing a rather basic specification of the
Stefan> Info system.  Not to say we shouldn't do it, in fact I rather agree we
Stefan> should for library functions, but it's not just simply "fixing a bug".
Stefan> The Texinfo manual, at least, should say something about it.  Perhaps
Stefan> also the coding standards.

Karl> We should discuss this on bug-texinfo.

Moved here...

Stefan> The way to disambiguate could be "info glibc printf".  

Karl> Sounds good to me.  It already happens.  With standalone Info, info foo
Karl> bar looks for foo in dir, then bar in foo.info's top-level menu.  So the
Karl> necessary change to make this work would be for the glibc manual to add
Karl> all its functions to its top-level menu, rather than to dir.

Another idea would be for "info libc printf" to look in the index if
"printf" is not a menu item.

Tom