broken links in Texinfo manual on www.gnu.org

[Paul Eggert]

The gnu.org web copy of the Texinfo manual contains broken links,
and this is a symptom of a more-systematic problem with Texinfo
documentation that also exists for other GNU documentation such as
Autoconf and Automake.

If I ask the W3C Link Checker <http://validator.w3.org/checklink>
to validate the Texinfo manual
<http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/texinfo.html>
it responds with a list of problems (see below), including this one:

  Line: 15668 http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/gzip.html
      Status: 404 Not Found

    The link is broken. Double-check that you have not made any
    typo, or mistake in copy-pasting. If the link points to a
    resource that no longer exists, you may want to remove or fix
    the link.

    Broken fragments:

    http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/gzip.html#Top (line 
15668)

The source for this link is in doc/texinfo.txi, and looks like this:

  @pxref{Top,,,gzip,Gzip}

This is the "normal" way for one GNU manual to cite another, but it's
not working on the web.  What's a good way to fix this?  I suppose
it could be replaced by an explicit URL, but that wouldn't work as
well when reading the documentation with GNU Emacs info mode.


FYI, here's a complete list of problems found in the Texinfo
manual using the above procedure:

error Line: 15668
http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/gzip.html
    *Status*: 404 Not Found

    The link is broken. Double-check that you have not made any typo, or
    mistake in copy-pasting. If the link points to a resource that no
    longer exists, you may want to remove or fix the link.

    Broken fragments:

      * http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/gzip.html/#Top/
        (line 15668)

error Lines: 12038, 12561
http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/elisp.html
    *Status*: 404 Not Found

    The link is broken. Double-check that you have not made any typo, or
    mistake in copy-pasting. If the link points to a resource that no
    longer exists, you may want to remove or fix the link.

    Broken fragments:

      * 
http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/elisp.html/#Calling-Functions/
        (line 12561)
      * 
http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/elisp.html/#Special-Forms/
        (line 12038)

error Lines: 13883, 14028, 14390
http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/web2c.html
    *Status*: 404 Not Found

    The link is broken. Double-check that you have not made any typo, or
    mistake in copy-pasting. If the link points to a resource that no
    longer exists, you may want to remove or fix the link.

    Broken fragments:

      * 
http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/web2c.html/#TCX-files/
        (line 14028)
      * 
http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/web2c.html/#tex-invocation/
        (line 13883)
      * 
http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/web2c.html/#Memory-dumps/
        (line 14390)

error Line: 14652 http://partners.adobe.com/asn/acrobat/sdk/public/docs/
    *Status*: 302 -> 404 Not Found

    The link is broken. Double-check that you have not made any typo, or
    mistake in copy-pasting. If the link points to a resource that no
    longer exists, you may want to remove or fix the link.

error Line: 6766 http://www.gnu.org/man.cgi/1/ls
    *Status*: 404 Not Found

    The link is broken. Double-check that you have not made any typo, or
    mistake in copy-pasting. If the link points to a resource that no
    longer exists, you may want to remove or fix the link.

error Line: 11382 http://www.gnu.org/software/gnu/texinfo
    *Status*: 404 Not Found

    The link is broken. Double-check that you have not made any typo, or
    mistake in copy-pasting. If the link points to a resource that no
    longer exists, you may want to remove or fix the link.

error Line: 17777
http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/cvs.html
    *Status*: 404 Not Found

    The link is broken. Double-check that you have not made any typo, or
    mistake in copy-pasting. If the link points to a resource that no
    longer exists, you may want to remove or fix the link.

    Broken fragments:

      * http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/cvs.html/#Top/ (line
        17777)

error Lines: 1465, 14105
http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/dvips.html
    *Status*: 404 Not Found

    The link is broken. Double-check that you have not made any typo, or
    mistake in copy-pasting. If the link points to a resource that no
    longer exists, you may want to remove or fix the link.

    Broken fragments:

      * 
http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/dvips.html/#Invoking-Dvips/
        (lines 1465, 14105)

error Line: 13193
http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/gettext.html
    *Status*: 404 Not Found

    The link is broken. Double-check that you have not made any typo, or
    mistake in copy-pasting. If the link points to a resource that no
    longer exists, you may want to remove or fix the link.

    Broken fragments:

      * http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/gettext.html/#Top/
        (line 13193)

error Line: 21135 ftp://tug.org/texi2roff.tar.gz
    *Status*: 404 File 'texi2roff.tar.gz' not found

    The link is broken. Double-check that you have not made any typo, or
    mistake in copy-pasting. If the link points to a resource that no
    longer exists, you may want to remove or fix the link.

error Line: 13039
http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/make.html
    *Status*: 404 Not Found

    The link is broken. Double-check that you have not made any typo, or
    mistake in copy-pasting. If the link points to a resource that no
    longer exists, you may want to remove or fix the link.

    Broken fragments:

      * http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/make.html/#Top/
        (line 13039)

error Line: 1383
http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/diff.html
    *Status*: 200 OK

    Some of the links to this resource point to broken URI fragments
    (such as index.html#fragment).

    Broken fragments:

      * http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/diff.html/#Top/
        (line 1383)

error Lines: 2622, 15233
http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/emacs.html
    *Status*: 200 OK

    Some of the links to this resource point to broken URI fragments
    (such as index.html#fragment).

    Broken fragments:

      * 
http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/emacs.html/#Changing-an-Option/
        (line 2622)
      * 
http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/emacs.html/#Command-Arguments/
        (line 15233)

error Lines: 373, 537
http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/texinfo.html
    *Status*: 200 OK

    Some of the links to this resource point to broken URI fragments
    (such as index.html#fragment).

    Broken fragments:

      * 
http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/texinfo.html/#_002d-and-hyphenation/
        (line 373)
      * http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/texinfo.html/#dir/
        (line 537)


      List of redirects

The links below are not broken, but the document does not use the exact
URL, and the links were redirected. It may be a good idea to link to the
final location, for the sake of speed.

warning Line: 1483 http://tug.org/applications/pdftex redirected to
http://tug.org/applications/pdftex/
    *Status*: 301 -> 200 OK

    The link is missing a trailing slash, and caused a redirect. Adding
    the trailing slash would speed up browsing.

warning Line: 1335 http://www.gnu.org/doc redirected to
http://www.gnu.org/doc/
    *Status*: 301 -> 200 OK

    The link is missing a trailing slash, and caused a redirect. Adding
    the trailing slash would speed up browsing.

warning Line: 17778 http://www.gnu.org/software/rcs redirected to
http://www.gnu.org/software/rcs/
    *Status*: 301 -> 200 OK

    The link is missing a trailing slash, and caused a redirect. Adding
    the trailing slash would speed up browsing.

warning Line: 14686 http://tug.org/web2c redirected to http://tug.org/web2c/
    *Status*: 301 -> 200 OK

    The link is missing a trailing slash, and caused a redirect. Adding
    the trailing slash would speed up browsing.