Re: [bug] Trailing whitespace in dir files

[Gavin Smith]

On 25 March 2017 at 00:21,  <address@hidden> wrote:
> While setting up global-whitespace-mode in Emacs, I've found the following bug
> (which, by the way, isn't specific to Emacs Info mode):
>
> When install-info splits a long description over several lines, it leaves
> a blank character (understood as ' ' or '\t' in this context by install-info) 
> on
> the first line, even if the corresponding line in the .texi source file 
> doesn't
> end with such a character.
>
> Here's an example from Emacs docs (doc/misc/cc-mode.texi in emacs source 
> tree):
>
> -- BEGIN 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> @direntry
> * CC Mode: (ccmode).            Emacs mode for editing C, C++, Objective-C,
>                                   Java, Pike, AWK, and CORBA IDL code.
> @end direntry
> -- END 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> When added to the dir file via
>
> $ texinfo-6.3/install-info/ginstall-info ccmode.info.gz dir
>
> this becomes
>
> -- BEGIN 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> * CC Mode: (ccmode).            Emacs mode for editing C, C++, Objective-C,
>                                   Java, Pike, AWK, and CORBA IDL code.
> -- END 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------

I can't see the difference here. A trailing space must have
disappeared from your email somehow.

When I try it I did get the output

-- BEGIN -----------------------------------------------------------------------
* CC Mode: (ccmode).            Emacs mode for editing C, C++, Objective-C,
                                  Java, Pike, AWK, and CORBA IDL code.
-- END -------------------------------------------------------------------------

with a space at the end of the first line.

> Extending the last description line to make install-info wrap the description
> more than once reveals that trailing blanks would be left on all output lines
> but the last one.

I confirmed this with the test file you sent.

I don't think it is important to change what the code does in this
area. It could be viewed as useful by showing which lines are grouped
together; maybe a viewer could use this information to break the line
in a different place.

If you don't want trailing whitespace to be brought to your attention,
turning off the mode in emacs that shows it would be the way to do it.