Re: Bug#793067: Bug#792328: info: can no longer find the Emacs manual

[Norbert Preining]

Hi Karl, hi all,

lots of mails here, but I still don't see why you are opposing
the idea to have different versions of the same program installed,
and wanting to be able to *check* all of them.

On Mon, 03 Aug 2015, Karl Berry wrote:
> If you're globally changing the meaning of the "emacs" binary, why
> wouldn't you want "info emacs" to change with it?

That is fine, that *should* happen.
If emacs points to emacs24, then the info emacs should you drop
also into the emacs24 info.

But I might still want to be able to read several manuals without
too many concoctions. Emacs is a bad example, python is a better.
The division between python2 and python3 is now continuing since
long, and many scripts are written for python2, which is the default
on Debian. But I might want to adapt my script to python3 and want
to be able to read python3 info.

ANyway, I wan to return to the proposal I wrote some time ago and
that was discarded as not working (or unclear):

Change info reader node search method as follows:
* if a node is going to be followed, first search *in*the*current*directory*
  for the respective info file, and if that fails search INFOPATH.

That way one can:
* put files into subdirs
* links within the same suite work (emacs shipping lots of related info docs)
* links to external progs will use the default version by searching
  in INFOPATH

I don't see disadvantages of this approach, but I am happy to listen to
explanations.

ALl the best

Norbert
 
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PREINING, Norbert                               http://www.preining.info
JAIST, Japan                                 TeX Live & Debian Developer
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