Subject: Re: bug#52126: Problematic characters in info node names

From: Stefan Kangas <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2021 09:44:17 -0800

Lars Ingebrigtsen <[email-masked]> writes:

>> ** Manuals
>> Check for node names using problematic characters:
>>   find doc -name '*.texi' -exec grep '^@node[^,]*[:.()]' {} +
>> Sadly makeinfo does not warn about such characters.

Did something change here since the above note in admin/release-process
was written in 2013 (commit 16bcc96df4)?

I read in (info "(texinfo) Node Line Requirements") that:

   * Unfortunately, you cannot reliably use periods, commas, or colons
     within a node name; these can confuse the Info reader.  Also, a
     node name may not start with a left parenthesis preceding a right
     parenthesis, as in '(not)allowed', since this syntax is used to
     specify an external manual.  (Perhaps these limitations will be
     removed some day.)

     'makeinfo' warns about such problematic usage in node names, menu
     items, and cross-references.  If you don't want to see the
     warnings, you can set the customization variable
     'INFO_SPECIAL_CHARS_WARNING' to '0' (*note Other Customization
     Variables::).

(Though I can't see any warnings produced when running "make info" in a
fresh tree.)