Re: install-info will not install into non-existent dir file

[Gavin Smith]

On Fri, Nov 06, 2020 at 07:15:24AM +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > From: Gavin Smith <gavinsmith0123@gmail.com>
> > Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2020 20:36:28 +0000
> > 
> > I suggest that install-info should create the file if it did
> > not exist already, or at the least give a warning about the file
> > not existing.
> 
> Sounds reasonable, thanks.

The problem was that although /usr/share/info/dir didn't exist,
/usr/share/info/dir.gz did.  install-info finds and uses the
compressed file, but apparently info doesn't.  I don't know exactly
how I got the compressed dir file (probably something to do with the
OS distribution), but I see no reason why this shouldn't be supported.

There is this comment in the source code:

  /* Using each element of the path, check for one of the files in
     DIRS_TO_ADD.  Do not check for "localdir.info.Z" or anything else.
     Only files explictly named are eligible.  This is a design decision.
     There can be an info file name "localdir.info" which contains
     information on the setting up of "localdir" files. */

where 'dirs_to_add' is an array containing only the strings "dir"
and "localdir".  I'd be happy to disregard this comment as I doubt
anybody has ever used "localdir" files since this was written.
I'm going to try to use the same code to find the dir file as the
code that finds other files, and then the compressed file extensions
would be supported.