Re: Texinfo.tex, problem with too-long table inside @float

[arnold]

Hi.

Gavin Smith <gavinsmith0123@gmail.com> wrote:

> The \vbox is not moved around for texinfo.tex but it is possible that
> the @float may be moved around in other output formats: LaTeX or DocBook,
> for example.

Yes, I got that. And that's OK.

> (For LaTeX, there is the 'longtable' package
> (https://ctan.org/pkg/longtable?lang=en) which appears to allow splitting
> tables across pages, although using this would require you to edit
> the LaTeX output manually.)

I will be looking into that. It might be that eventually makeinfo --latex
should use that instead of the regular table package.

> The solution that occurs to me is to recognise a third argument for
> @float.  .....
>
> % #3 is the optional positioning argument; for now, it is ignored.  It
> % will somehow specify the positions allowed to float to (here, top, bottom).
>
> (I can't find any discussions from the time about the new feature
> in the mailing list archives.) 

2004 is about the time I was writing the first edition of the book
I'm now updating. :-)  IIRC, @float came about as the result of
private email between me and Karl, which is why you're not finding
anything on the list.

> If the position is given as "here" (or whatever we decide), we could
> then omit the \vtop wrapping.  So in your example, the @float line
> would become
>
> @float Table,table-errno-values,here
>
> This would also need modifications to texi2any to recognise the additional
> argument.

I'm good with that for the long term solution. For the short term,
I've removed the \vtop from my copy of texinfo.tex, and I will look
into scripting edits of the generated LaTeX.  (Last time I delivered
the book in Dockbook XML. These days the publisher wants LaTeX. [I guess
that's progress!])

> As I said before, with the label at the bottom of the table, if the
> table is split across pages, then it does not function properly as
> a label.  So simply removing the \vtop wrapping may not produce
> satisfactory output.

I think it did, but I will double check this.  In any case, it just
needs to be good enough for reviewers to read the book for review;
production will be done with LaTeX.

Much thanks!

Arnold