Re: imprecise cross reference

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2007 23:22:56 +0200
> From: Benno Schulenberg <address@hidden>
> 
> When in current CVS doing `info info-stnd scroll`, followed by three 
> <Tab>s and <Enter>, the cursor does not sit on the paragraph that 
> explains `scroll-behavior', but somewhere in the paragraph about 
> `cursor-movement-scrolls' in the same node that also contains the 
> word "scroll-behavior".

I take it that 3 TABs get you to this cross-reference:

   *Note `scroll-behavior': Variables, for more information.

right?  (I'm looking at the released version, where I need 2 TABs, not
3, to get to that xref.)

> I've seen this also a few times in other documents, so I wonder:
> is this just an imprecision of this one reference in the info-stnd 
> document, or a general problem with cross references in Info?

It's a general problem: Info cross-references cannot specify a precise
position of the reference, they only specify the node.  To do better
than just jump to the beginning of the node, the stand-alone reader
searches from the beginning of the node for the string, in this case
"scroll-behavior", in the node text.  It stops at the first match,
which is what you see, I presume.  (In the version I'm looking at, it
stops at the place you'd expect.)  If the first place is not right,
the reader loses.

One way of fixing this would be to modify the node text so that the
first place that mention "scroll-behavior" is the one that describes
the variable.  This should be so anyway, as any term should be
explained before it is used.