Re: info reference syntax

["B. T. Raven" <nihil@nihilo.net>]

Dan Davison wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 09, 2009 at 08:27:40PM +0100, Lennart Borgman wrote:
>> On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 8:22 PM, Dan Davison <davison@stats.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>>> What does this syntax mean?
>>>
>>> ,----
>>> | See Info node `(viper)Top'.
>>> `----
>>>
>>> Is there some way of using it to immediately access the info node
>>> referred to?
>> M-: (info "(viper) Top")
> 
> Great, thanks. That is useful to know.
> 
> "(viper) Top" still seems like a pretty weird syntax. Just out of
> curiosity, is there some explanation? I see that the shell version is
> 'info filename nodename'. And according to wikipedia info was written
> for GNU/linux. So it's a post-linux emacs design? Wouldn't
> 
> (info filename &optional nodename)
> 
> have been more natural?
> 
> Dan


This is essentially what it is. Try C-h f info and you read:

"
info is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `info.el'.
It is bound to C-h i, <f1> i, <help> i.
(info &optional FILE-OR-NODE BUFFER)

Enter Info, the documentation browser.
Optional argument FILE-OR-NODE specifies the file to examine;
the default is the top-level directory of Info.
Called from a program, FILE-OR-NODE may specify an Info node of the form
`(FILENAME)NODENAME'.
Optional argument BUFFER specifies the Info buffer name;
the default buffer name is *info*.  If BUFFER exists,
just switch to BUFFER.  Otherwise, create a new buffer
with the top-level Info directory.
"