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Mail Archives: djgpp-workers/2002/02/25/19:55:04

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Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 19:56:55 -0500
To: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
From: "Peter J. Farley III" <pjfarley AT dorsai DOT org>
Subject: Re: Dircategories and (tex|txi|texi|texinfo]) files
Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
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At 05:07 PM 2/25/02 +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
 >On Sun, 24 Feb 2002, Peter J. Farley III wrote:
 >> It's been a while, and I'm not sure how much time I can personally
 >> devote to resolving this, but Rich Dawe suggested I bring this 
issue
 >> to the list, so here it is.
 >
 >Thanks for all the footwork!

You're welcome.  I can't help myself sometimes -- this stuff just cries 
out to be fixed.  <*Sigh*>  That's what I get for being a life-long 
programmer -- no resistance to the urge to "fix that one last bug..." 
:)

Even when I am already over-committed and under-slept.

<Snipped>
 >I would like to suggest yet another alternative, that is almost
 >identical to your #4.  It's a 2-step dance:
 >
 >  1) Don't put install-info commands into the DSM files for packages
 >that
 >     already have entries in the DIR file from the latest released
 >djdev.
 >
 >  2) When you do put install-info commands into the DSM, use the
 >--section
 >     option of install-info to specify the precise section where we
 >want
 >     the entry to be placed.  If necessary, use the --entry option as 

 >well.

Makes good sense to me.  However, rather than removing the install-info 
entries in DSM's, why not just leave them all in there *with* the 
appropriate DJGPP section names?

The critical requirement for this to work is the answer to the 
question: What happens to info/dir when you install-info an entry that 
already exists into a section that already exists?  I *hope* it just 
replaces the "old" entry in the same place, effectively leaving the 
info/dir file intact.  Does it?  (I'll test this myself later, just 
asking to get an "official" answer.)

 >The rationale for this is that we maintain the DIR file manually, and 

 >any
 >new ported packages are normally added to it right away (well, at 
least
 >that's the theory ;-).  So for most packages, users who install
 >something
 >do not  need to run install-info at all, since it's all have been 
done
 >for them  already.  The only exceptions are the packages ported since 

 >the last djdev release; thus clause 2) above.

Understood, but leaving the install-info commands in DSM files (with 
appropriate --section and/or --entry arguments) has the added advantage 
of letting "new" ports get into info/dir in the right place, even 
before they get "officially" added in the CVS info/dir.  Handy for 
porters and for adventurous souls who volunteer to test ports.

 >Of course (putting on my Texinfo co-maintainer hat), if you spot an
 >Info
 >manual without @dircategory or @direntry, or with faulty entries,
 >please
 >report that to the respective package maintainer(s).  But whatever 
they
 >do to get their act together, we in the DJGPP project will almost
 >certainly use a different partition in the DIR file, so even the 
fixed
 >manuals will not satisfy our specific needs.

Which is the "right" thing to do, and which I may indeed do for a few 
of the packages myself.  But what "categories" do we recommend to the 
GNU maintainer: The ones in the "standard"?  I'd make up and use a very 
different list than theirs.

I will send some change recommendations to the gnu-standards buglist 
after doing some archive research, and see what response I get.

 >> Vis-a-vis alternative #3, there *is* a recommendation in the GNU
 >> Programming Standards document about how "info/dir" files should be 

 >> structured and sectioned.
 >
 >These standards don't make much sense for DJGPP users, since they
 >almost
 >never build the packages themselves.  So it doesn't do us any good to 

 >comply to the standard DIR partition, especially since the bulk of 
the
 >GNU project has yet to catch up with these standards.  As long as
 >there's
 >a mess out there, we had better fix it manually, like we've been 
doing
 >all the time.

Agreed, which is why I brought the problem here first.
---------------------------------------------------------
Peter J. Farley III (pjfarley AT dorsai DOT org)

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