Bug#882842: texi2dvi: error from pdfTeX with @var in exponent with the raw formatter command

[Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net>]

Package: texinfo
Version: 6.5.0.dfsg.1-1
Severity: normal

I've reported the folowing bug upstream:

  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-texinfo/2017-11/msg00019.html

However, I'm not sure of the right package, since if the issue comes
from the texinfo.tex file, then this may also be a bug in automake,
which provides this file via "automake --add-missing".

When @var is used in exponent with the raw formatter command, I get an
error in the PDF generation:

@tex$2^{@var{foo}}$@end tex

yields errors like

../../../.././mpfr.texi:2219: \scriptfont 5 is undefined (character f).
l.2219 @tex$2^{@var{foo}}$
                          @end tex
../../../.././mpfr.texi:2219: \scriptfont 5 is undefined (character o).
l.2219 @tex$2^{@var{foo}}$
                          @end tex
../../../.././mpfr.texi:2219: \scriptfont 5 is undefined (character o).
l.2219 @tex$2^{@var{foo}}$
                          @end tex

The use of @var is important to get the correct typography
(slanted instead of italic, with kerning).

I'm using texinfo 6.5 under Debian. The texinfo.tex version is:

\def\texinfoversion{2013-02-01.11}

which seems to be the version installed by automake (same file as
/usr/share/automake-1.15/texinfo.tex).

-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
  APT prefers unstable-debug
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable-debug'), (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.13.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=POSIX, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=POSIX (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages texinfo depends on:
ii  libc6                       2.25-2
ii  libtext-unidecode-perl      1.30-1
ii  libxml-libxml-perl          2.0128+dfsg-5
ii  perl                        5.26.1-2
ii  perl-base [perlapi-5.26.0]  5.26.1-2
ii  tex-common                  6.09

texinfo recommends no packages.

Versions of packages texinfo suggests:
ii  texinfo-doc-nonfree          6.5.0-1
ii  texlive-base                 2017.20171031-1
ii  texlive-fonts-recommended    2017.20171031-1
ii  texlive-generic-recommended  2017.20171031-1
ii  texlive-latex-base           2017.20171031-1

-- no debconf information