From: Martin Str|mberg Message-Id: <199908151351.PAA01528@father.ludd.luth.se> Subject: Info Crash Course To: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com (DJGPP-WORKERS) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 15:51:51 +0200 (MET DST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL15 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com Here's an updated Info Crash Course. It obviuosly was near to perfact to begin with (smiling), because the only feedback I've received is the "Alt-x" from Eli. There are also some minor spell and grammar corrections that I have found. Please let me know where it will be included. Personally I think it should be included in the README.1ST file or at least a refence to it put there. Right, MartinS A Crash Course in Info ====================== Introduction ------------ This is a short piece that will give you some basic knowledge of info. It is not supposed to be a complete guide, but a starting point to help beginners to use the info program so they can easily read the FAQ and the C library documentation. Info is the primary documentation reader for the GNU project and for DJGPP. You must have installed the txi*b.zip to be able to use it. Some key pressing terminology ----------------------------- "C-x" means pressing and holding down the "Ctrl" key, then pressing and releasing the "x" key and then releasing the "Ctrl" key. "M-x" means pressing and holding down the "Alt" key, then pressing and releasing the "x" key and then releasing the "Alt" key. An alternative way of generating "M-x" is pressing and releasing the "Esc" key, then pressing and releasing the "x" key. Keys which are used together with the "Ctrl" key, the "Alt" key or the "Esc" key are case independent. However in the sequence "M-x compile" the "compile" part _is_ case dependent (while the "M-x" is not). How to exit ----------- First of all you must know how to exit the program, so you can come back and read the rest of this document in case you are running in plain DOZE. The easiest way is "C-c". The nice way (towards the info program) is "q". How to start ------------ Just type "info" at the command prompt. This starts the info program and positions you at the "Directory node", which is an index of a lot of different info documents. If you now want to look at the C library you use the arrow keys (or "C-p", "C-n", "C-f" and "C-b" in case the arrow keys don't exist or work), and position the prompt on the line that starts with "* libc.a" and press "RET". If you want to go directly to the FAQ from the command prompt (and bypassing the "Directory node"), you type "info faq" at the prompt and voila you are immediately at the start of the FAQ. How to find what you what to know --------------------------------- Suppose you are getting the infamous "ld.exe: cannot open -lstdcxx: No such file or directory" and you want to check what the FAQ has to say about that. You start info and go to the the FAQ node ("info faq"). Then you press "i" (for index search) followed by entering "can" and "TAB TAB". Now you will see a list of potential completions. Alas none of them seems to be relevant for this problem, so you press "C-g" (abort-key) to restart you index search, and then enter "-lstd" followed by TAB". Now the the info program only have one choice so it completes your search and this time it's exactly what you are looking for! Now press "RET" to go to that node and read what the FAQ has to say about this subject. Sometimes the index search isn't good enough (because the indices cannot list everything), in this case "C-s" (search) can be useful. Suppose you failed finding anything in the previous section using index search (for arguments sake). Then you press "C-s" followed by typing "-lstd" and there you are, again at the right place in the right time. If this first match isn't what you wanted, you can search for the next by pressing "C-s" again (and again...) and if you want to search backwards you can use "C-r". How to find out more -------------------- This was just a small short sample of info's abilities. To find out more I suggest you read info's info ("info info").