X-Authentication-Warning:	delorie.com: mailnull set sender to djgpp-workers-bounces using -f
Date:	Tue, 12 Mar 2002 08:28:49 +0200 (IST)
From:	Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
X-Sender:	eliz AT is
To:	"Peter J. Farley III" <pjfarley AT dorsai DOT org>
cc:	djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
Subject:	Re: Simpler restructured dir.txi
In-Reply-To:	<3C8D941F.E96AD46E@dorsai.org>
Message-ID:	<Pine.SUN.3.91.1020312082059.24908K-100000@is>
MIME-Version:	1.0
Reply-To:	djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
Errors-To:	nobody AT delorie DOT com
X-Mailing-List:	djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
X-Unsubscribes-To:	listserv AT delorie DOT com

On Tue, 12 Mar 2002, Peter J. Farley III wrote:

> As Eli requested, I created a new DIR file using makeinfo and my
> candidate dir.txi, and then ran the following install-info commands, all
> while in the DJGPP info directory:
> 
> install-info textutils.info
> install-info automake.info
> install-info autoconf.info

Thanks.

> As I thought, the result is not pretty.

Actually, it's not that bad.  I feared it would be worse.

> I believe that any package whose texinfo file uses only "@format" and
> "START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY" will have all of its entries sorted by name into
> the "Miscellaneous" section.

That's true, assuming you don't use any command-line options of 
install-info to tell it otherwise.

>  Similarly, any package that uses
> "@dircategory" and "@direntry" will create or add to those named
> sections, again at the end of the DIR file.

No, the ``end of DIR'' part is inaccurate: if there's already a category 
in DIR with an identical name, install-info should put the entries in 
that category, not at the end.  At least, that's my recollection from the 
last time I looked at the code.

> The only solutions to the problem that I can see would be to (a) submit
> patches to bring the GNU source into line with DJGPP's categories, or
> (b) to disable DJGPP's install-info or rename it so that it must be
> manually invoked if the user really, really wants to run it.  With
> instructions on how to enable or un-rename it if that is what they wish
> to do.

There's another solution: an option could be added to install-info not to 
remove the existing entries.  This will still add new entries, but the 
old ones will remain intact.

Of course, if zippo supports the necessary feature, and users start using 
zippo to install packages, the problem will become less grave.  (Not that 
it's grave now, IMHO, since most users don't even know about install-info,
and our DIR is reasonable up-to-date most of the time.)

- Raw text -