Re: (info browser) Should any default directories be used when INFOPATH is set?

[Karl Berry]

Hi Gavin,

    I would like to have a self-contained set of info files which
    the program can read, without any interference from any which have
    already been installed

Definitely a necessity.

    This would seem to contradict the manual:

You are right.

    My reading of this is that no extra default search directories are
    used when INFOPATH is set. Unless there's a good reason for it, I
    propose to stop info doing this.

Because this behavior has been around so long, I fear that people
setting INFOPATH now are likely to expect the merging with system
directories, despite the documentation.  In other words, let's treat it
as a doc bug and not a code bug.

Therefore, I think we should change the documentation for INFOPATH to
say that it does do the merging (as well as the "extra colon"
expansion), and invent a new variable to define the entire info path
without any additional defaults (no need for colon expansion there, I
think).  Sound reasonable?

The variable name that comes to mind is INFOPATH_OVERRIDE, not that I'm
especially thrilled by it :).

?

Thanks,
Karl