Re: auto-update of Info dir file?

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Cc: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
> From: Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
> Date: Mon, 15 May 2006 23:54:06 -0400
> 
> It's probably OK if we only do the check when the mtime of the parent dir is
> more recent than the mtime of the dir file (and only under Unix, of course,
> since this presumes POSIXy semantics).

Is it indeed guaranteed that the mtime of the directory is always
_after_ the last file modified in that directory?

Anyway, this sounds too fragile, as someone could touch or otherwise
affect the modtimes of the files and the directory, e.g. by removing
files or compressing them rather than adding.  And then what about
info/ subdirs?

I think we could solve the problem much easier: if the user wants a
manual called "mumble", and there's no such entry in DIR, look for a
_file_ called `mumble' with several possible extensions.  This is what
the stand-alone Info does, so adding this to Emacs will increase
compatibility between the two readers.  Doing this bears no run-time
penalty, and almost the same benefits for the user.