Re: Bug#793067: Bug#792328: info: can no longer find the Emacs manual

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Rob Browning <address@hidden>
> Date: Sun, 02 Aug 2015 18:35:29 -0500
> 
> Karl Berry <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > Here's what I don't get: suppose there are two versions of Emacs
> > installed, emacs-x and emacs-y.  Presumably Debian (and anyone else) has
> > some method for the user to choose which one is invoked by just "emacs".
> > Can't that method, whatever it is, also switch the Info files that are 
> > found?
> 
> Among other things, I don't think that'd really be feasible on a
> multi-user system.  I don't want to change the docs (and currently the
> default #! version as well) for everyone on the system just because I
> want to check out the GCC 5 info pages.

In that case, the only viable alternative is some environment
variable, perhaps even INFO_PATH, or some personal init file.

> Perhaps it's naive, but I feel like I might just want a dir like this so
> that I can find what I want and don't have to change global state and/or
> restart the viewer just to read different versions:
> 
>   * Emacs 24 ...
>   * Emacs 25 ...
> 
>   * GCC 4.9 ...
>   * GCC 5.0 ...
> 
>   * Python 2.7 ...
>   * Python 3.4 ...

That solves only a part of the problem, and not the most difficult
part.  The difficult part is cross-references between manuals.  Those
don't go through DIR, they load the specified Info file directly.  How
will an Info reader know which version of a manual to load, according
to your suggestion?  E.g., suppose I have 2 GCC versions and 2 GDB
versions installed, and want to use a particular pair of them -- how
would references from the GCC manual to GDB and vice versa show me the
manual for the versions I use?