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

[Gavin Smith]

On 8 August 2015 at 09:32, Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> wrote:
>> problems I foresee are
>> that indirect sub-file tables have hitherto never contained absolute
>> paths
>
> Why would it need to, since this is only about renaming the basename
> of the Info file, isn't it?

Assuming you were asking about the absolute paths in the indirect
table, this was to mimic a symbolic link from a different directory;
for example from underneath a user's home directory, to a system
directory, to which a user may not have write access, or to which the
user may not wish to write. This was to enable per-user configuration,
as mentioned in previous emails.

>> >> and why is it important enough to add an extra feature for them that
>> >> isn't needed on other operating systems, complicating the situation
>> >> for everybody else who isn't using them?
>> >
>> > Init files are a widely used feature, it's not a complication at all.
>>
>> Clearly it is a complication to design an init file format, write code
>> to parse it, and explain to users how to write such init files.
>
> Sorry, I don't follow: Info already supports an init file, so the
> above code already exists, right?

It existed for different purposes; extending it has all the problems I
mentioned, and I expect and hope it will be unnecessary.