Re: Emacs cvs newbie problems

[Luc Teirlinck]

Richard Stallman wrote:

   Can you try to track down how it came to be that these various different
   dir files got installed?  Which versions of which packages installed them?

Yes.

ELISP> Info-directory-list
("/usr/local/info/" "/usr/local/share/info/" "/usr/info/"
"/usr/share/info/" "/usr/local/info/")

The dir file in /usr/local/info was installed (or updated) by
emacs-21.3.50.

/usr/local/share/info is an empty directory.

The dir file in /usr/info was installed by texinfo-4.2.

The dir file in /usr/share/info (a symlink to /etc/info-dir) came with
Red Hat 7.2.

I have the impression that any "dir" files installed by emacs-21.1.90
or 21.2.90 got overridden by emacs-23.3.50.

   This is not a bug in info.el, but I wonder if it could merge these sections
   rather than just putting them in side by side.

That might be more difficult than might appear at first.

What seems to complicate matters a lot is the fact that identical or
nearly identical sections, as well as individual entries, may have
different names.  

I have a section "Emacs" installed (or updated) by emacs-21.3.50 and a
nearly identical section "GNU Emacs" in the "dir" installed by
Red Hat 7.2.

I have entries:

* info standalone: (info-stnd).            Read Info documents without
  Emacs.

and:

* Standalone info program: (info-stnd).    Standalone Info-reading
  program.

in different "Texinfo documentation system" sections that lead to
exactly the same *info* buffer.

It would be relatively easy for me to hand correct my own messy
situation, but finding a good general solution seems difficult.

I do not know how frequently the problem I encountered occurs for
other people.

Sincerely,

Luc.