Bug#484740: some cross references don't work as info search files without .info extension

[Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.org>]

reopen 484740
retitle 484740 info should not try to load files without .info extension
severity 484740 normal
thanks

On 2008-06-06 10:36:39 +0200, Norbert Preining wrote:
> Hi Vincent,
> 
> my opinion on that is the above. I am closing this bug.

You didn't understand the problem. I'll try to re-explain.

First, the libtool info file is installed here:

  /usr/share/info/libtool.info.gz

This is the only one installed and it is loaded without any problem
by typing "info libtool".

Now, when I want to read the mpfr info file after typing "make info"
from MPFR's build directory, I type: "info ./mpfr" (users should not
be forced to install info files: testing things locally is important
for development purpose). Until now, everything is OK.

In the mpfr info file, there's a cross reference that points to the
libtool info file. Now, I want to follow this cross reference. So,
I expect /usr/share/info/libtool.info.gz to be loaded as if I typed
"info libtool". But this is not what happens: instead, "info" loads
the "libtool" file (which is in fact a script, not an info file)
from the current directory. Thus following the cross reference
fails, because "info" got the wrong file.

So, I suggest two possibilities to fix this bug (as being an unintuitive
and undocumented behavior, with clear problems, this is really a bug):

  * Only search for files with .info extension (possibly compressed).
    Indeed file extensions are there to avoid clashes between files
    that have different types (e.g. between an info file and a script
    that would have the same root name). Not enforcing them is asking
    for trouble.

  * If for some reason (which one?), the above cannot be done, then
    when a file was loaded but is not an info file, "info" should
    continue the search (unsing the info path, as usual) as if this
    file wasn't there.

> WHere??? In the whole filesystem? It did already check all the variants
> of libtool.info with and without compression etc.

No, it *stopped* at the first file it could find (namely, "./libtool")
while I expected "/usr/share/info/libtool.info.gz".

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.org> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.org/>
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Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Arenaire project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)