Texinfo vs. Debian install-info, new upstream texinfo

[Norbert Preining <preining@logic.at>]

Hi all!

Thanks to Karl a new upstream of texinfo has been released, including
many of the suggestions the dpkg team provided.

Before shipping a package of texinfo 4.9 to unstable I want to continue
with the install-info merge. From our transition-plan:

--------------
Transition proposal
===================
 + Changes in dpkg
   - replace dpkg's install-info by a script which just issues a
     warning,
     or exit silently.
     This script could be removed for Lenny+1 or 2.
     install-info should no more be essential, it is only needed when the
     info viewer is installed to search the info pages.

 + Changes in texinfo
   - a new install-info package replaces dpkg's install-info
   - This install-info should support the current dpkg's install-info
     options (i.e. no failures, but not necessarily registering the info
     file)
     IMO, this install-info should be compatible with the GNU's install
     info, and when it detects that it is used by a old Debian package, it
     should do nothing (or just warn and recommend using update-info-dir,
     see below).
      * this should provide a compatibility with packages not installed
        from a Debian package (make && make install)
      * and should not block the installation of old packages
      * full compatibility with current dpkg's install-info would be
      * nice,
        but is not required
   - Add an update-info-dir script. This script should just delete the
     dir
     file and then call the GNU's install-info with all the info files.
     (see also the previous mails from Ian Zimmerman, and his patch for
     --generate in install-info)

   - When installed for the first time (or first time >= version xxx),
     it should call update-info-dir.
     * There may be an issue with local softwares (not Debian packages)
       => maybe add a debconf question / NEWS entry?
     * What options should be used when installing the old info files?
   - Add support for multiple dir files in the info viewer.
     This would permit update-info-dir to use the
     --dir-file /usr/share/info/debian-dir option.
     /usr/share/info/dir (and /usr/local/share/info/dir) could be used for
     non Debian's info files.
   - Fix some regressions from dpkg's install-info.
     (IIRC an alignment regression was mentioned with GNU's texinfo)
-----------------------

So my plan is the following: I create a 4.9/experimental package
with:
- a new install-info package (should probably be essential, no?) containing
  a script as above.
  Don't we have one of these scripts already present? AFAIR someone
  sent a script doing this under the assumption that 2 options were
  implemented in upstream install-info, which has been done.

- Concerning the update-info-dir script I am a but lost, do we have
  a script for this already?

then we can slowly continue adding stuff/features there.

Any comments?

Best wishes

Norbert

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Norbert Preining <preining@logic.at>        Vienna University of Technology
Debian Developer <preining@debian.org>                         Debian TeX Group
gpg DSA: 0x09C5B094      fp: 14DF 2E6C 0307 BE6D AD76  A9C0 D2BF 4AA3 09C5 B094
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