GNU bug report logs - #9891
24.0.90; Duplicated entry at the info directory

Previous Next

Full log

View this message in rfc822 format

From: Stefan Monnier <monnier <at> IRO.UMontreal.CA>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: juri <at> jurta.org, 9891 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#9891: 24.0.90; Duplicated entry at the info directory
Date: Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:52:54 -0400

>> I think I'm beginning to understand: the problem is that the "top-level
>> dir" is used in two very different contexts:
>> - for interactive use, where it should be shortish and avoid redundancy.
>> - for non-interactive use, typically to make `info' emulate `man', where
>> the toplevel `dir' is abused as an index.  This only works for
>> specially built `dir' files and I don't see it used in Debian,
>> for instance.
>> The Info-dir-remove-duplicates is clearly meant for the first use and
>> I think that's the most important use, so if we want to make it handle
>> the second case we'll have to make sure it doesn't hurt the first.
> What would constitute "hurting the first use case"?

An example of hurting the first use case would be to keep "* GDB: (gdb)"
along with "* Gdb: (gdb)".

> I intend to make a change whereby the header lines we maintain on
> Emacs's info/dir file are not deleted (by removing ("Emacs . "Emacs)
> from Info-streamline-headers) -- would that "hurt", and if so, why?

I added that code because I bumped into different dir entries which used
slightly different header lines for fundamentally the same purpose.
E.g. my current /usr/share/info/dir contains:

   Emacs
   * Ada mode: (emacs-21/ada-mode).
                                   The GNU Emacs mode for editing Ada.
   [...]
   Emacs editing modes
   * Ada mode: (emacs-23/ada-mode).
                                   Emacs mode for editing and compiling Ada code.
   [...]
   Emacs network features
   [...]
   * TRAMP: (emacs-23/tramp).      Transparent Remote Access, Multiple Protocol 
                                     Emacs remote file access via rsh and rcp.
   [...]
   GNU Emacs
   * TRAMP: (emacs-22/tramp).      Transparent Remote Access, Multiple Protocol 
                                     GNU Emacs remote file access via rsh and rcp.

And of course, between these headings appear some others that aren't
related to Emacs.  It's a pretty messy part of the Texinfo
infrastructure and would deserve to be improved.


        Stefan

Previous Next

GNU bug tracking system
Copyright (C) 1999 Darren O. Benham, 1997,2003 nCipher Corporation Ltd, 1994-97 Ian Jackson.