Re: Minimum Texinfo version for creating the documentation

[Daniel J Sebald]

On 01/04/2018 04:01 PM, Mike Miller wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 04, 2018 at 16:33:19 -0500, John W. Eaton wrote:
> > If we decide to do something like this, then in the name of autoconf and all
> > that is good, could we please do it using feature tests instead of a version
> > number?
>
> +1
>
> Can someone describe exactly what features of Texinfo 5 or 6 we are
> using that won't work with an older version of Texinfo 4?
>
> If we are only talking about the existence of the macros
> @codequoteundirected and @sortas, those are defined in the texinfo.tex
> file which we inherit from gnulib, so there might not be a problem at
> all.

Those are the only two.  See

https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?52775#comment3

It must be that the builder's system is recognizing some older version 
of Texinfo ahead of what is in gnulib.  Perhaps that is a build bug.

Per JWE's idea, the following seems a minimal script example (first is a 
valid macro name, second not):

linux@ ~/octave $ (echo "\input texinfo" && echo "@cindex @sortas{test} 
ing" && echo "@bye") > testtexinfo.texi; texi2dvi --quiet testtexinfo.texi
linux@ ~/octave $ (echo "\input texinfo" && echo "@cindex @snortas{test} 
ing" && echo "@bye") > testtexinfo.texi; texi2dvi --quiet testtexinfo.texi
/usr/bin/texi2dvi: etex exited with bad status, quitting.

I tried not needing the intermediate file, but it seems that texi2dvi 
needs the name to verify the .texi extension.

Dan