Re: [help-texinfo] Standalone info as a generic info processor?

[Gavin Smith]

On 6 November 2016 at 13:28, Alejandro Sanchez <address@hidden> wrote:
> Thank you for the answer. I am new to mailing list, so I hope it is correct 
> that I am sending this reply to Gavin Smith and CCing it to address@hidden

That is fine.

>How does info know what qualifies as an index?

It looks for nodes with "index" in the name.

> However, that’s very hacky. Wouldn’t it be better to have such a feature 
> built info info instead? It would not only be useful for me but for people 
> who might want to use info from other programs as well. Is this the place to 
> discuss such an issue or should I post on another mailing list?

Here is okay.

>> The node names and line numbers are present in the "virtual index", so
>> it should be sufficient for your needs.
> Any way of accessing this virtual index?

At present, not from the command-line: only with the "I" command as mentioned.

I suggest we add a new option so you could do, e.g. "info -f bash
--virtual-index for -o -" and get the list of matching index entries
printed. Do you think that would be a good idea?

>
>> Also, I think you misunderstand the structure of an Info file. Nodes
>> are not nested within one another, so your location would just be
>>
>> info://file-name/node-2/
> I see. The version of info that came with my system (4.8) required me to go 
> from node to node as if they were nested, but 6.3 doesn’t.

The nodes are not nested within one another. But the nodes contain
menus which refer to other nodes, so the nodes form a tree structure
within the info file.