Re: rethinking @def*

[Gavin Smith]

On Wed, Aug 10, 2022 at 10:04:23PM +0200, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> > If people wanted upright @code on a slanted @def line then there would
> > be other ways to achive this, like doing @r{@code{...}}, or using
> > @deftype without a type.
> 
> I agree, in general this should not be needed for the reasons you
> said.  I will give another one, in general it is not a good idea to use
> @code to mark anything on a @def* line, as it adds quotes in Info which
> will be confusing for many programming languages.  That being said, the
> replacement would be @r{@t{...}} which is also a nesting of commands.

We should make @code and maybe @t upright everywhere so it can be
used with @defun and other commands.  This is used in the groff
manual occasionally, in the arguments.  Here is an example:

@DefreqList {bp, [@Var{page}]}
@DefreqItem {bp, @t{+}@Var{page}}
@DefreqItem {bp, @t{-}@Var{page}}

which expands after macros to something like

@deffn Request @t{.bp} [@r{@slanted{page}}]
@deffnx Request @t{.bp} @t{+}@r{@slanted{page}}
@deffnx Request @t{.bp} @t{-}@r{@slanted{page}}

It's the @t{+} and @t{-} which represent literal text in the
arguments.

While in theory @deftypefn could now be used instead for this,
it would be less disruptive to allow @deffn to be used.

I presume @t was used here to stop quotes appearing in Info.
It would seem the simplest solution would be to force uprightness
for both @code and @t.

> For @code, ok, but for @t, I disagree.  @t is just a font change
> command, it should not force anything.  If @t is always upright, also,
> then it is impossible to have a slanted typewriter formatting.  It could
> be left undefined and format specific, but forcing @t to be always
> upright (in @def arguments) seems wrong to me.

Slanted typewriter would still be possible with
@t{@slanted{... rather than @slanted{@t{...  although I doubt this is
something we want to document.  As ever, accumulating font styles does
not work in texinfo.tex and is not something for the user to rely on.