Re: backslashes, macros, indexes, texinfo

[Gavin Smith]

On 24 June 2015 at 13:28, Gavin Smith <address@hidden> wrote:
> This makes sense because we'd need to invoke @findex like "@findex
> address@hidden" but it's being invoked like "@findex \with}macro". With
> texinfo.tex, the \} is converted into a command to display an actual
> close brace glyph at an earlier stage, and it has no further
> interpretation as an end group character. I expect there's no portable
> way to pass braces in the argument to a macro.

"@funindex address@hidden" works with makeinfo, and also works with
texinfo.tex with the following, amended patch. The difference from the
previous patch is that { and } are given catcode \other when getting
the line argument. @ already had catcode \other, but it still works in
the macro expansion because all the characters are read in again in
\scanmacro.

Index: texinfo.tex
===================================================================
--- texinfo.tex (revision 6352)
+++ texinfo.tex (working copy)
@@ -7449,6 +7449,12 @@
 %
 % \anythingelse will almost certainly be an error of some kind.

+\def\macrolineargctxt{% used for whole-line arguments without braces
+  \scanctxt
+  \catcode`\{=\other
+  \catcode`\}=\other
+}
+
 % \mbodybackslash is the definition of \ in @macro bodies.
 % It maps \foo\ => \csname macarg.foo\endcsname => #N
 % where N is the macro parameter number.
@@ -7795,7 +7801,7 @@
         \noexpand\scanmacro{\temp}}%
     \or % 1
       \expandafter\xdef\csname\the\macname\endcsname{%
-         \bgroup\noexpand\macroargctxt
+         \bgroup
          \noexpand\braceorline
          \expandafter\noexpand\csname\the\macname xxx\endcsname}%
       \expandafter\xdef\csname\the\macname xxx\endcsname##1{%
@@ -7828,7 +7834,7 @@
         \noexpand\scanmacro{\temp}\egroup}%
     \or % 1
       \expandafter\xdef\csname\the\macname\endcsname{%
-         \bgroup\noexpand\macroargctxt
+         \bgroup
          \noexpand\braceorline
          \expandafter\noexpand\csname\the\macname xxx\endcsname}%
       \expandafter\xdef\csname\the\macname xxx\endcsname##1{%
@@ -7864,6 +7870,7 @@

 \def\norecurse#1{\bgroup\cslet{#1}{macsave.#1}}

 % \braceorline decides whether the next nonwhitespace character is a
 % {.  If so it reads up to the closing }, if not, it reads the whole
 % line.  Whatever was read is then fed to the next control sequence
@@ -7871,8 +7878,8 @@
 %
 \def\braceorline#1{\let\macnamexxx=#1\futurelet\nchar\braceorlinexxx}
 \def\braceorlinexxx{%
-  \ifx\nchar\bgroup\else
-    \expandafter\parsearg
+  \ifx\nchar\bgroup\macroargctxt\else
+    \macrolineargctxt\expandafter\parsearg
   \fi \macnamexxx}