[Octave-bug-tracker] [bug #47820] Uncomprehesive behaviors for functions that are not recognized in configure

[Lachlan Andrew]

Follow-up Comment #9, bug #47820 (project octave):

JWE, I see your point about not wanting the user to need to have the tools to
build the documentation.

However, there are other mechanisms that may allow the response of "help" to
be customised, without changing the texi/dvi/ps/pdf (or even df) files.

For example, there could be an extra argument to DEFUN consisting of a
(configuration dependent) string to prepend or append to the docstring before
displaying help.  A more ambitious option would be to make that extra argument
a sed script, so it can do things like completely replacing the help text --
without changing the full pdf or any of the tool-dependent files.

Such an extension is clearly a large undertaking, but I don't think it should
be dismissed out of hand.

Other than the need for users to have tools and the possibility of multiple
incompatible manuals, are there other reasons not to have the (online)
documentation independent of the configuration?

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