[help-texinfo] Re: Generate an index of texinfo manual

[reader]

Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:

>> From: address@hidden
>> Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 13:20:30 -0600
>> 
>> I've been pawing thru this group and googling to find a few commands
>> to generate an index from a manual already in texinfo format.
>
> You mean, already in Info format, I presume.  There's no way of doing
> that; the indexing commands must be present in the Texinfo sources of
> the manual, and then the contents of one or more Index nodes will be
> produced in the Info manual when the Info manual is generated from its
> Texinfo sources.

I guess I had a flawed notion of how it all worked.

Since taking an interest for a while several yrs ago.  I seem to have
forgotten whatever little bit I ever new about the workings of
texinfo... for me it is one of those things that is just always there
when I need it.  I rarely go any further.

It appears on further investigation that the problem is not with the
info files at all but must be my emacs installation causing what I am
seeing.

Two things show this to be the case:
1) The stand alone info browser sees the index of gawk just fine.
   Somehow in an earlier test I thought it didn't  but testing
   repeatedly I see it works fine from the standalone.

2) If I start emacs with -q -no-stite-file and then open the info
   browser, the  gawk manual and the index is there as expected.

>>   C h i m gawk <RET>
>> 
>> Brings up the gawk manual alright but then pressing `i' for an index
>> search tells me `no index'.
>
> Please look at the beginning of gawk.info that you have installed with
> a text file viewer (e.g., Less or `more'), and tell what do you see
> there.  This is what I have in the manual that came with Gawk 3.1.6
> (the latest released version):

[...] 
(I include `diff  info.eli info.harry' output at the end )
Only versional information is different.

I've taken the question to gnu.emacs.help since it appears to not be
a texinfo problem. (My post has not showed up yet about 24 hrs later
but has Subject: some info node manuals have no index
        Message-ID: <address@hidden>)

But I did check thru my init files and am not
finding the source of the problem yet.

  grep -i info .emacs /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-start.el 

Just shows a few additions to Info-default-directory-list and case
sensitive search

(add-hook 'Info-mode-hook 'case-fold-nil)
(add-to-list 'Info-default-directory-list "/usr/local/gnus/texi")
(add-to-list 'Info-default-directory-list "/usr/local/bbdb/texinfo")
(add-to-list 'Info-default-directory-list 
   "/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp/elib-1.0/texi")

Its puzzling how emacs when started normally, can know where the info
files are and display them but not have access to the index of some
items but does for others.  There have always been some items that
didn't have indexes as I recall but:

Just checking randomly I see emacs when started normally can display
the manual and index of that manual for some items: diff, gzip, find
display indexes as expected but not cvs or gawk.

I haven't done extensive testing of all items but all of those above
including cvs and gawk display indexes when emacs is started 
emacs -q -no-site-file.
Starting emacs normally and loading this code from site-start.el:

 (defadvice load (before debug-log activate)
(message "Now loading: %s" (locate-library (ad-get-arg 0))))

Shows this in the *Messages* buffer:

Loading /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp/whats_loading.el (source)...
Loading advice...done
Loading /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp/whats_loading.el (source)...done
Now loading: /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/emacs-wget/w3m-wget.elc
Loading w3m-wget...done
Loading skeleton...done
Loading regexp-opt...done
Now loading: /home/reader/.emacs
Now loading: /home/reader/.emacs-custom
Loading /home/reader/.emacs-custom...done
Now loading: /home/reader/.abbrev_defs
Loading /home/reader/.abbrev_defs...done
Loading easymenu...done
Loading cl-macs...done
Now loading: nil
Now loading: /home/reader/.abbrev_defs
Loading places from /home/reader/.emacs-places...done
For information about the GNU Project and its goals, type C-h C-p.
Loading dired...done
Making completion list...

================================================================

diff info.eli info.harry output
============
  0a1,2
  > This is gawk.info, produced by makeinfo version 4.6 from gawk.texi.
  > 
  3,4d4
  < This is gawk.info, produced by makeinfo version 4.11 from gawk.texi.
  < 
  12,13c12,13
  <    Copyright (C) 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000,
  < 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
  ---
  > Copyright (C) 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000,
  > 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
  17c17
  < Guide for GNU Awk', for the 3.1.6 (or later) version of the GNU
  ---
  > Guide for GNU Awk', for the 3.1.5 (or later) version of the GNU