Re: use directly makeinfo in texi2dvi instead of working around

[Gavin Smith]

On Sun, Nov 13, 2022 at 12:26:33PM +0100, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 13, 2022 at 11:12:17AM +0000, Gavin Smith wrote:
> > I've done it myself.  I didn't change the makeinfo invocation.  I don't
> > like the "-c TEXINFO_OUTPUT_FORMAT=plaintexinfo" option much but it is
> > not a big deal if you would rather use it.  (My feeling is that
> > "plaintexinfo" is not very descriptive and that the TEXINFO_ prefix
> > is redundant.)
> 
> plaintexinfo could be changed to something else, just tell me.

If we change it to something else then texi2dvi can't use it because
old versions won't have whatever we leave it to.

> > Another option would be to change texi2any not to process for output
> > with the invocation we use -
> > 
> >  $makeinfo --footnote-style=end -I "$in_dir" $run_mi_includes \
> >         -o /dev/null --macro-expand=-
> > 
> > - possibly if the --macro-expand option is given as this option is likely
> > only used in this script and for debugging. 
> 
> I am a bit worried that some user-defined scripts rely on this
> behaviour.  Also, if "-c TEXINFO_OUTPUT_FORMAT=plaintexinfo" was
> replaced by --macro-expand it would require changing --macro-expand not
> to take an argument.

We can leave it as it is now, then.

> In any case, I prefer using "-c TEXINFO_OUTPUT_FORMAT=plaintexinfo" to
> avoid the expansion to Info, not only because it is useless, but as
> importantly, because the error messages related to conversion to Info
> are output, this should be avoided.

Ok, that makes sense.

> Last, you forgot --iftex --no-ifinfo, I will also add.

Thanks for checking this.