Re: more consistent ignoring before node and sections and Top node

[Patrice Dumas]

On Thu, Mar 10, 2022 at 09:55:46PM -0600, Jacob Bachmeyer wrote:
> Patrice Dumas wrote:
> > On Sun, Feb 20, 2022 at 10:42:25AM +0000, Gavin Smith wrote:
> > > Again I think the name of the option shouldn't contain the work "book",
> > > as it is too vague.
> > 
> > I added a customization variable named 'NO_TOP_NODE_OUTPUT' which, if
> > set is the book-like output.  There is no reference to a book like
> > style in the name, I have no idea if the name is good nor if there
> > should be a reference to book formatting in the name.
> 
> I do not know how well this fits with other customization variables, but I
> would suggest something like 'OUTPUT_OMIT_TOP_NODE' if there is a plan to
> group output-related variables with an OUTPUT_* prefix, or maybe simply
> 'OMIT_TOP_NODE' if all customization variables implicitly refer to the
> output.

The problem I saw with using OMIT, or SKIP explicitely, is that it may
imply that all the @-commands in the Top node are not taken into
account, even with OUTPUT_ prefixed, which is not the case.  @-command
are taken into account, and after that the corresponding output is
ignored.  That's why I avoided using such a verb in the customization
variable name.

> Either way, setting this variable when producing Info output should probably
> raise an error.

I think that it simply should be ignored, same as for LaTeX or
TexinfoXML. We do not check that customization actually apply to a
specific format being generated, and I do not think that we should, this
allows to keep the same command line for different formats even if some
customization variables are irrelevant.  Also for output that can be
extended, such as HTML, a customization variable could have some meaning
in user defined code (though this is not relevant for Info output).

-- 
Pat