Re: texinfo 6.0 texindex problem?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2015 11:48:44 +0100
> From: Gavin Smith <address@hidden>
> Cc: Aharon Robbins <address@hidden>, Texinfo <address@hidden>
> 
> On 9 October 2015 at 08:06, Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> wrote:
> > Btw, my usual problem with such new features is that it's impossible
> > (AFAIK) to use them in a manual in a backward-compatible way,
> > i.e. while making sure older versions of makeinfo will process the
> > manual without errors.  That's because there's no way (again AFAIK) to
> > write a condition that tests whether a given feature is available, nor
> > even one that tests the version of makeinfo that is processing the
> > file.
> >
> > This forces any real-world project to avoid using the newly introduced
> > features completely, until enough years pass after their introduction,
> > because telling the end users to install the latest Texinfo is not a
> > practical option.
> >
> > So perhaps we should introduce a facility for such tests, and
> > preferably in a way that is itself backward-compatible, e.g., testable
> > with @ifset or some such.
> 
> Would you or anybody else like to design and/or implement such a facility?

My Perl-mojo is too weak for that, sorry.  I hope someone will pick up
the gauntlet.