Re: [PATCH v2 0/5] A small Texinfo refinement

[Andrew Pinski <pinskia@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Mar 8, 2023 at 5:09 PM Sandra Loosemore <sandra@codesourcery.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/8/23 14:22, Arsen Arsenović wrote:
> >
> > Sandra Loosemore <sandra@codesourcery.com> writes:
> >
> >> On 3/8/23 02:11, Arsen Arsenović wrote:
> >>> Sandra Loosemore <sandra@codesourcery.com> writes:
> >>>
> >>>> On 2/23/23 03:27, Arsen Arsenović via Gcc-patches wrote:
> >>>>> I've rerendered the updated documentation with latest development
> >>>>> Texinfo (as some of the changes I made for the purposes of the GCC
> >>>>> manual still aren't in releases) at:
> >>>>>      https://www.aarsen.me/~arsen/final/
> >>>>
> >>>> Ummm.  I don't think GCC's documentation should depend on an unreleased version
> >>>> of Texinfo.  Currently install.texi documents that version 4.7 or later is
> >>>> required, 4.8 for "make pdf"; did I miss something in your patch set that bumps
> >>>> this requirement?  Exactly what features do you depend on that are not yet
> >>>> supported by an official Texinfo release?
> >>> This patch should still build with older Texinfo versions (albeit, I
> >>> hadn't tested 4.7, I missed that requirement).  The unreleased version
> >>> should be installed on the server building HTML documentation as it
> >>> produces better results w.r.t clickable anchors and index-in-table
> >>> handling.  It should not be a hard dependency, and should only degrade
> >>> to its current state should in-dev Texinfo be missing.
> >>
> >> Hmmm, OK.  We presently have Texinfo version 6.7 installed here, so I'll give
> >> that a try.  I'm not sure I'd be able to detect problems with incorrect HTML
> >> anchors or whatever, though.
> >
> > 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.
>
> >> Most people building GCC from source probably use whatever versions of build
> >> dependencies are provided by their OS distribution.  In our group we need
> >> reproducible builds for long-term support so we maintain our own list of
> >> dependencies and normally update to the latest stable versions only once every
> >> few years unless there is a hard requirement to upgrade some particular tool
> >> meanwhile.  I personally do not know how the manuals for the GCC web site are
> >> built, but it seems kind of important to make sure that works as intended since
> >> it's the main online resource for ordinary GCC users.
> >
> > Yes, I can get behind this sentiment too.  I don't mean to impose a hard
> > dependency on the bleeding edge of Texinfo.  My target was indeed the
> > GCC website and ordinary users.
> >
> >>> It might be worth bumping the minimum, 4.7 is a version from 2004; in
> >>> the meanwhile, I'll try a few older versions too.
> >>
> >> I agree that it's unlikely anyone is building current GCC with a Texinfo
> >> version as old as 4.7 any more, and it may be that the manual doesn't even
> >> build properly with such an old release due to existing unintentional
> >> dependencies on newer features, independently of your patch.  If we do update
> >> the version, there's a version check in configure.ac and some hack for
> >> "makeinfo 4.7 brokenness" in doc/install.texi2html that need to be changed, as
> >> well as install.texi.
> >
> > 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.

CentOS/RHEL 7 includes texinfo 5.1. That is the oldest distro I think
mostly supports building with.
That is the oldest I do builds of GCC with even for the trunk.

Thanks,
Andrew

>
> 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.
>
> -Sandra