Re: Argument of \\ has an extra } ??

[Karl Berry]

    \initial {\\}

As I recall, Arnold and I did that as part of the new texindex, so that
backslashes could be properly sorted, etc.  It seems semantically
correct to me.  Trying to treat "{\tt \indexbackslash }" as equivalent
to "\" seemed poor design.

(Ultimately, what I really want is for the index files to use @ instead
of \ for the escape character, as should have been done from day one,
but the new texindex has to get far more widely deployed.)

    I wonder if there's any way for texindex to output something that is
    very likely to work with a bundled texinfo.tex file regardless of
    its version.

Of course that would be nice in theory, but barring a kludge like the
above, I don't see how.  Perhaps just a failure of imagination.  Anyway,
I don't think it is so unreasonable for people to avoid using an ancient
texinfo.tex with the new texindex.  If that causes more old
texinfo.tex's to get updated, that's a good thing.

k

P.S.
    \gdef\\#1pt{#1}}

Indeed.  I wish Knuth hadn't done that (it was one of the last changes
he ever made to plain.tex), but of course it was never up to us and
certainly isn't going to change now.