[ale] info

[Joe Knapka]

Fulton Green wrote:
> 
> Firstly, if you're using a VERY recent Linux distro, some mfgrs. are moving
> the info and man pages into the /usr/share hierarchy, so check to see if

Slack 7.1. It's still all in /usr/info.

> there's anything funky going on. Assuming that's not the case, there should
> be a file called dir in /usr/info. This is known as the "root document" in
> Infoland. Not only is it the default page when you exec info with no args,
> but it also *seems* to be a director of sorts for where to find info docs
> that you specify.

Sho'nuff. I've actually tried editing that file before, with some
small success, but it was just too painful for words. Mainly because
I am only really interested in reading the bloody things, not
writing them.
 
> The Info system should include a utility called install-info that lets you
> add entries to the dir file. There's an info page on install-info to help
> you get started.

Oooh, goody. I'll try install-info.

OK, I tried it. Unfortunately install-info is a really
stupid program (obviously intended to be used by installation
scripts to get their info pages into the heirarchy, rather
than for mass updates to the directory). I finally resorted
to "cd /usr/info ; for i in * ; do { install-info $i dir } ; done",
which took about half an hour on my P75. But lo and behold, it
worked! Now when I do "info install-info" I get the info
node for install-info, rather than the man page <:o\

Thanks for the clue,

-- Joe

*** Joseph Knapka ***
In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks)
are to be treated as variables.
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