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

[Sandra Loosemore <sandra@codesourcery.com>]

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.

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.

> 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.

-Sandra