bug#1188: Info reader and newlines in dir file

bug#1188: Info reader and newlines in dir file

[dhruv]

I built and installed the MySQL Info manual.  The manual would show up
in the dir node when I invoked `info' from the command line but was
nowhere to be found when I invoked `info' within Emacs.  I tracked
this down to the fact that the MySQL entry in the Info dir node was
the last one and that there was no newline after it.  Inserted a
newline allowed Emacs to "see" the manual and load it up properly
inside Info running in Emacs.  This might be purposeful design, but it
feels like a bug to me: Emacs Info should behave like the command-line
info and not any different.


In GNU Emacs 22.1.1 (i486-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars)
 of 2008-05-02 on terranova, modified by Ubuntu
Windowing system distributor `The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.10300000
configured using `configure  '--build' 'i486-linux-gnu' '--host' 'i486-linux-gnu' '--prefix=/usr' '--sharedstatedir=/var/lib' '--libexecdir=/usr/lib' '--localstatedir=/var' '--infodir=/usr/share/info' '--mandir=/usr/share/man' '--with-pop=yes' '--enable-locallisppath=/etc/emacs22:/etc/emacs:/usr/local/share/emacs/22.1/site-lisp:/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/22.1/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/22.1/leim' '--with-x=yes' '--with-x-toolkit=athena' '--with-toolkit-scroll-bars' 'build_alias=i486-linux-gnu' 'host_alias=i486-linux-gnu' 'CFLAGS=-DDEBIAN -DSITELOAD_PURESIZE_EXTRA=5000 -g -O2''

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  locale-coding-system: utf-8
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Help

Minor modes in effect:
  display-time-mode: t
  show-paren-mode: t
  punch-clock-mode: t
  shell-dirtrack-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  unify-8859-on-encoding-mode: t
  utf-translate-cjk-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  column-number-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t
  view-mode: t

Recent input:
r y SPC f o r SPC M y S Q L SPC w a s SPC t h e SPC 
l s a <backspace> <backspace> a s t SPC o n e SPC i 
n SPC t h e SPC = - d <backspace> <backspace> d i r 
= SPC f i l e SPC a n d SPC t h a t SPC n o SPC n e 
w l i n e SPC f o l l o w e d SPC i t . SPC SPC A d 
d i n g SPC a SPC n e w l i n e SPC a l l o w e d SPC 
E m a <M-backspace> <M-backspace> m a k e s SPC E m 
a c s SPC n o w SPC r e c o g n i z e SPC i <backspace> 
a n d SPC r e a d SPC i t SPC i n t o SPC I n f o SPC 
i n s i d e SPC o f SPC E m a c s . SPC SPC W h a t 
SPC a SPC s t u p i d SPC b u g . M-q C-x C-s M-x s 
e n d SPC <tab> <s-backspace> C-h a b u g SPC r e p 
o r t <return> C-x o C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n 
C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n <return> C-x o 
C-x 1 M-x r e p o r t SPC e m a c s SPC m <backspace> 
b u g <return> I n f o M-x r e C-g M-x r e p o r t 
SPC e m a c s SPC b u g <return>

Recent messages:
Quit
Loading apropos...done
Type C-x 1 to remove help window.   [2 times]
Type C-x 4 C-o RET to restore the other window.   [2 times]

Loading emacsbug...done
 [2 times]
call-interactively: Command attempted to use minibuffer while in minibuffer
Quit
 [3 times]

bug#1188: Info reader and newlines in dir file

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: dhruv@physics.utexas.edu
> Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:38:45 -0500
> Cc: 
> 
> I built and installed the MySQL Info manual.  The manual would show up
> in the dir node when I invoked `info' from the command line but was
> nowhere to be found when I invoked `info' within Emacs.  I tracked
> this down to the fact that the MySQL entry in the Info dir node was
> the last one and that there was no newline after it.  Inserted a
> newline allowed Emacs to "see" the manual and load it up properly
> inside Info running in Emacs.  This might be purposeful design, but it
> feels like a bug to me: Emacs Info should behave like the command-line
> info and not any different.

The Emacs Info reader and the stand-alone Info reader are two
different implementations of the same informal specification.  There's
no formal specification of the structure of a valid Info file.  So
there's little hope for both of them working identically in bordeline
cases such as this one, especially since they are written in two very
different programming languages.  As a matter of fact, they have
different features, albeit minor ones.

I would also argue that an entry in DIR without a newline is a bug in
whatever procedure you followed to install that Info manual.

Bottom line, my recommendation is not to try to fix this, at least not
now, for fear of breaking something more important at the time when
the efforts are on fixing real bugs (of which there are too many, IMO)
in order to begin the pretest.  But that's me.

bug#1188: Info reader and newlines in dir file

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> Bottom line, my recommendation is not to try to fix this, at least not
> now, for fear of breaking something more important at the time when
> the efforts are on fixing real bugs (of which there are too many, IMO)
> in order to begin the pretest.  But that's me.

This was 12 years ago, and agree that it's best not to try to fix this,
and I'm closing this bug report.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no