Re: allow : in node names is an implemented feature, not an idea that won't be implemented

[Patrice Dumas]

On Mon, Aug 15, 2022 at 11:51:34AM +0100, Gavin Smith wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 15, 2022 at 11:52:53AM +0200, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> > I would suggest simply removing this entry from the TODO file as it is
> > done.  The part on index entries could be kept until the bug referred to
> > is closed.
> 
> OK done.

Does not seems to be pushed...

> > In addition, in my opinion, INFO_SPECIAL_CHARS_QUOTE should be set in
> > the default case.  The resulting node names are not usable, so it does
> > not matter if they have ^? appearing here and there.  It could even be
> > considered a good thing as it points that either the manual or the
> > reader should be fixed.
> 
> I'm happy if you enable this as it is clearly useful for the Perl
> module documentation.  If you do enable it could you please check there
> is no quoting for Info index entries in the text part (there could still
> be quoting in the node part).  To state this again, if an index entry
> contains a colon and is in a node whose name doesn't contain a colon,
> there shouldn't be any quoting there.  The reason is that Info readers
> should use the method described in the link above to read these entries.

Right now, unless I am missing something, there is no quoting at all in
index entries, from the top of my head, there is something said along
'indices are still usable without quoting'.  There is a warning if
INDEX_SPECIAL_CHARS_WARNING is set, but it is not set in the default
case:

In  Other Customization Variables:

 INDEX_SPECIAL_CHARS_WARNING
 If set, warn about ‘:’ in index entry, as it leads to invalid entries in index 
menus
 in output Info files. For Info and plaintext only. Default false, because 
parsing
 problems there don’t prevent navigation; readers can still relatively easily 
find
 their way to the node in question.

> (I'm going to check the manual for how well the use of colons in index
> entries is described.)

I read rapidly and found nothing, except in the INDEX_SPECIAL_CHARS_WARNING
documentation I showed just above.

> If INFO_SPECIAL_CHARS_QUOTE is set by default, then
> INFO_SPECIAL_CHARS_WARNING should still be set by default to give warnings
> about these characters.

Are you sure about that?  It seems to me that if INFO_SPECIAL_CHARS_QUOTE
is set (by default or not), INFO_SPECIAL_CHARS_WARNING warnings are not
useful, and there is likely for such warnings to appear, as the
corresponding constructs are now ok.  In the API manual there are a lot
of those warnings, because of @*ref.  Nothing can avoid them because
it is in another manual, but they should be be useless if
INFO_SPECIAL_CHARS_QUOTE is set.

-- 
Pat