Re: @cindex no longer expands macros

[Gavin Smith]

On Thu, Jun 25, 2020 at 08:26:35AM +0200, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
> 
> [git 63711e8c6fafe9b3cde2a2d0be507032d7ee7bf6]
> 
> Folks,
> 
> 
> consider the following example.
> 
> ======================================================================
> 
> \input texinfo.tex
> 
> @macro q{TEXT}
> @quoteleft{}\TEXT\@quoteright{}
> @end macro
> 
> @cindex @q{accent} articulation
> text
> 
> @printindex cp
> 
> @bye
> 
> ======================================================================
> 
> Attached you can find the tex output using texinfo.tex from
> 2019-02-16.14 and 2020-05-22.11; as you can see, the @q macro
> is no longer correctly expanded in the new version.

As you can see, it is expanded, it is just that the control sequences 
are not recognized because the index file uses '\' instead of '@'.  This 
is an old problem and mentioned as a possible pitfall in the "Macro 
Details" node of the manual.

This problem would go away if we could use @ consistently as the escape 
character for index files.  I had thought we had a solution for this, 
but apparently it is not quite good enough.

Using @ consistently in index files by default relies on both texi2dvi 
and texindex being new enough.

Nevertheless, I have attempted a fix in commit 1094ba7c9.  Let's hope it 
doesn't break anything else.