Sandra Loosemore <sandra@codesourcery.com> writes:

>> As an example, let's take this link:
>> https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-12.2.0/gcc/Warning-Options.html#index-Wpedantic
>> This should place you below the item line this index entry refers to,
>> and there aren't any copiable anchors (see equivalent in my render for
>> an example of those), both of which were often named as annoyances with
>> the onlinedocs while the Sphinx experiment was taking place.
>> A similar thing happens in the standalone and Emacs info viewers (but
>> that's less noticeable there since the cursor is placed in the middle of
>> the screen when jumping to an index entry there).  Try, for instance,
>> 'info gcc Wpedantic' (your cursor will be placed just below the item
>> line).
>> The fix for the first of these issues should already be applied by
>> Gerald (in the reordering commits, IIRC at least, save for one that I
>> created later because someone snuck in new "misplaced" indices), and
>> that fix should also fix up previous versions of Texinfo.
>> Even with this change, the copiable anchors will remain missing since
>> released Texinfo versions lack some AST transformations that enable
>> those.
>
> OK, I can see the difference there between the current online docs, the set you
> produced with the unreleased Texinfo support, and what I got building with
> Texinfo 6.7.
>
>> Otherwise, manuals should work fine with older releases, unless I missed
>> something when refactoring @defbuiltin and removing @gols (which I do
>> believe are superfluous with current versions of texinfo.tex, which is
>> why I bumped that too).
>
> I did a few spot-checks here and there of those changes.  I saw a couple of
> line break problems but they turn out to be due to existing errors in the .texi
> files that were not introduced by your (mostly mechanical) changes.

Thanks.  I tried to check all usage sites of @gol in PDF output too, to
make sure its removal didn't have a negative impact, but I only tested
new makeinfo and the texinfo.tex I pushed to my branch (2023-01-17.19).

I expect the version of makeinfo to have no impact for that output,
since it should just offload to texi2dvi.

>> FWIW, I (briefly) tested with Texinfo 6.0, and output seems okay.  On
>> 5.0, I got a few warnings, but I think even 6.0 is apt considering its
>> age.  I haven't given it a proper scrutiny, though (workdays are busy
>> this time of year..).
>
> Texinfo 6.0 was released in 2015, 5.0 in 2013.  FWIW, Trusty Tahr (the current
> oldest Ubuntu LTS release) has 5.2.  4.7 was released in 2004, I don't know why
> anyone would still be trying to use that unless it's needed for building legacy
> code from the same era.

Heh, I hadn't realized how far back LTS releases go..  I don't think
there's any new language constructs that the GCC manual could make use
of currently, so it shouldn't be too difficult to retain at least a
"builds with diagnostics" level of support for those versions.

> I think we could do away with the requirement for a specific minimum version,
> and make install.texi say something similar to what it says for e.g. awk --
> just use a "recent" version, and note that new versions produce better output
> and very old ones may produce diagnostics.  I'll add that do my own todo list.

That seems reasonable, thanks.

> -Sandra

-- 
Arsen Arsenović