Re: Warning about ":" in @ref

[Gavin Smith]

On Fri, Aug 04, 2023 at 04:06:47PM -0700, Raymond Toy wrote:
> With texinfo 7.0.2 (which comes with Fedora 38), I get warnings like:
> 
> |warning: @ref node name should not contain `:' |
> 
> The offending ref is “@ref{ext:encapsulate}”, and corresponding anchor is
> “ext:encapsulate”. I didn’t see anything in the manual about this
> constraint, but I didn’t look too hard. However, if there shouldn’t be a
> colon in a @ref, shouldn’t there a corresponding warning if an anchor
> contains a colon too?

>From (texinfo)Node Line Requirements:
    Unfortunately, you cannot reliably use periods, commas, or colons
    within a node name; these can confuse some Info readers.

>From (texinfo)@anchor:
       Anchor names share the same constraints as nodes on the characters
    that can be included (*note Info Node Names Constraints::).

I guess an anchor with a problematic name only becomes a problem if you
actually link to it, but I've nothing against such warnings being added
in principle, if somebody wanted to do the work to do so.

> 
> In the particular manual, there are lots of anchors that contain colons but
> most of them are not referenced via @ref. (For whatever reason.)
> 

How curious!