Re: Texinfo command nesting and syntax checking: nested @ref

[Gavin Smith]

On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 11:52:33AM +0100, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> Even the recent one?  I started having more categories in command_data.txt
> both for the inner commands classes (in_heading_spec) and outer commands 
> classes
> (contain_simple_text, contain_plain_text), maybe simply adding more
> classes/flags would be enough to have a clear code.  The issue is that
> the number of flags is constrained for the XS parser.

If it would help simplify matters we could add space for more flags in
the XS parser.  We would just have to add another field to the COMMAND
structure: "unsigned long flags2" for another 32 flags.  We'd also
need a new macro to access the flags, likely command_flags2, and
a naming scheme for the flag symbols, e.g. with a CF2_ prefix.  It
may also be possible to use a 64-bit integer type.

It's nice to limit the number of flags for the sake of simplicity alone,
but this is not an absolute requirement.

However, there are already unused flags in commands.h: currently,
CF_item_container, CF_item_line, and CF_inline.  Would there be any
reason not to delete these now from commands.h?  I feel this would be
a good idea to make it clear that they are no longer relevant.

There are also some flags that are not used in the XS code, like
CF_letter_no_arg, and there might be the scope not to generate these
in command_data.c.  command_data.awk already omits a list of flags
not used in the XS code.