Subject: `texinfo-master-menu' doesn't work.
From: Alan Mackenzie <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 21:33:40 +0000

In Emacs, either 22.3 or a recent CVS version ...
emacs -Q

1.

(i) C-c C-f .../path/to/emacs/doc/misc/cc-mode.texi
(ii) M-g M-g 238          ; the second line of the menu,
                          ; contents "* Overview::"
(ii) C-k C-k              ; Kill this line

(v) Now do C-c C-u m.  This flashes the screen and reports
"Done...completed making master menu.  You may save the buffer.".
However, it hasn't made the master menu - the "* Overview::" line is
still missing.

########################################################################

2.

(i) Kill (remove) the entire master menu from the buffer (between the
  lines "@menu" and "@end menu").
  
(ii) Try to regenerate the master menu with C-c C-u m.  This signals the
puzzling error "Buffer lacks ordinary `Top' menu in which to insert
master".  It is not clear what a "`Top' menu" is, in what respect it is
"ordinary", and in what regard the new master menu is inserted into it.
The existing master menu was not contained within any menu.

#########################################################################

3.

(i) C-c C-f .../path/to/emacs/doc/lispref/elisp.texi
(ii) M-g M-g 108       ; the second line of the menu,
                       ; "* Lisp Data Types:: ...."
(iii) C-k C-k          ; Kill this line

(iv) Now do C-c C-u m.  This doesn't regenerate the master menu.
Instead, it deletes the @detailmenu without restoring the "* Lisp Data
Types::" line.

#########################################################################

Comments:

Neither the doc string for `texinfo-master-menu' nor the texinfo manual
(page "Updating Nodes and Menus") describe other than vaguely what this
command is supposed to do.

The doc string states, accurately, that

    The function removes the detailed part of an already existing master
    menu.

, which though accurate, is puzzling in the extreme; what one wants from
this command is for the detailed bit to be inserted, not deleted.

There is no verb in "texinfo master menu", so one is led by intelligent
guessing to believe that the command does whatever necessary to insert
or update the master menu.  This doesn't happen.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).