bug-texinfo
[Top][All Lists]
Advanced

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

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


From: Eli Zaretskii
Subject: Re: Bug#793067: Bug#792328: info: can no longer find the Emacs manual
Date: Tue, 04 Aug 2015 16:35:38 +0300

> Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2015 23:32:08 +0100
> From: Gavin Smith <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden, Texinfo <address@hidden>,
>       Rob Browning <address@hidden>
> 
> If you don't care about being able to access renamed files via
> cross-references, then the renaming of files to include versions is
> good enough. If INFOPATH is the string "PATH", then the Info file
> search path is deduced from the value of the PATH environmental
> variable, so "info foo" should match the documentation for running
> "foo".

Assuming you are alluding to what's currently in the code, this is
only true for directories on PATH that have their own share/info
subdirectories.  Your text above could be interpreted to mean "info
foo" will load foo-1.2.3.info when there's /usr/bin/foo-1.2.3
executable file found on PATH, but I don't see in the code anything
that would make that happen.

> Then there would only be one "foo.info" manual reachable for
> each element in PATH (those other than the first can be accessed with
> "info --all foo"). This means that "info foo" can only give the manual
> for a particular version of foo if there is an executable called "foo"
> somewhere in the PATH (assuming a sensible setup). Otherwise you'd
> have to do "info foo-12.34" instead. This relegates that manual to a
> second-class status, but that isn't too bad, because the corresponding
> executable is also second-class when it comes to the shell finding it.

This would make many "second-class" manuals, because there are
actually many manuals that don't correspond to any executable.  To
name just a few, there are no executables named 'texinfo' or 'elisp'
or 'coreutils' or 'gccint'.  So adopting this path will just confuse
users, because "info emacs" will magically work, while "info elisp"
won't.



reply via email to

[Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread]