Re: Better Help Docs Searching?

[Zach Riggle <zachriggle@xxxxxxxxx>]

Okay, I'm a bit of an idiot.  I've been so spoiled by "brew install"
that I forgot to "autoconf && ./configure".

This explains the "make" failures I was getting above.  "make info"
now works for me, and generates "Docs/zsh.texi".

I don't want to "make install" and break things by putting stuff in
/usr/local (and I expect that using --prefix=some/other/directory will
prevent "info" from actually finding that content) -- so information
on how to generate the indices for the "info" command would still be
welcome.

I spent a while on Google searching things like "gnu info generate
(index|indices)" but can't really find much.  "man info" isn't
helpful, and "info info" is doubly unhelpful.

Zach Riggle

On Tue, Aug 3, 2021 at 12:45 AM Zach Riggle <zachriggle@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Thanks for all of the info (pun intended!), guys.
>
> I've never intentionally used the "info" command, only used it
> accidentally when I didn't import my zsh logging library (which
> defines debug/info/warn/err/die etc for use in my various scripts).
>
> ## Using Info
> When I invoke "info zsh" on my system (macOS 12) I do get some output.
> However when I hit shift-i, the status line at the bottom states "No
> indices found."
>
> Invoking manually doesn't work either, so I think there's something
> broken about the default install of Zsh on macOS (though I *also* have
> it installed via homebrew).
>
>     $ info --index-search=read zsh
>     no index entries found for `read'
>
> The "g" command works to jump between commands (e.g. "g read" takes me
> to the equivalent of read(2) man pages).
>
> I get "No indices found" for "info read" as well.  :(
>
> ## Building Info from Source
> It seems that I'm doing this incorrectly.  I inspected the Makefile
> and there is *definitely* an "info" target, but Make doesn't seem to
> like it.  I tried both with the OS-provided GNU Make (3.81), and also
> with Homebrew installed GNU Make (4.3).
>
>    $ make info
>     make: *** No rule to make target `info'.  Stop.
>
> There is definitely an "info" target.
>
>     $ grep -E '\binfo\b' Makefile.in | head -1
>     dvi ps html info pdf:
>
> Even trying to make it manually doesn't work
>
>     $ make -C Doc -f Makefile.in info
>     Makefile.in:30: *** missing separator.  Stop.
>
> ## Other Info Curiosities
> One thing that I really like / prefer about man pages is the $MANPAGER
> variable, which I have configured to use bat(3) [1] as my pager, which
> gives syntax highlighting, highlights command names, and flag names.
> Is there an equivalent for "info" pages?
>
> Here's a few examples:
> * sh: https://i.imgur.com/rGjQo9v.png
> * bash: https://i.imgur.com/ymnDh5V.png
> * git: https://i.imgur.com/ABqbZmE.png
>
> [1]: export MANPAGER="sh -c 'col -bx | bat -l man -p'"
>     (See https://github.com/sharkdp/bat#man.  The entire "bat" project
> is truly amazing.)
>
> Zach Riggle
>
> On Sun, Aug 1, 2021 at 3:11 PM Ray Andrews <rayandrews@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > On 2021-08-01 11:52 a.m., Bart Schaefer wrote:
> > > On Sun, Aug 1, 2021 at 9:33 AM Stephane Chazelas <stephane@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >> It's really astonishing that so few people know about it after
> > >> so many decades it's been around.
> > Little tidbits like you guys have just coughed up would have saved God
> > knows how much frustration here.  There's always a solution, but finding
> > it might not be so easy.
> > > GNU made a push some years ago to try to move everything from "man" to
> > > "info", but it never really took hold.
> > Strange, isn't it?  Something in the culture sticks to the trusted
> > tradition even when a clear improvement is available.  Seems to be a
> > Linux/Unix wide thing.  I still remember my first successful install of
> > Linux.  Bash without even command recall and no DELETE key, and one was
> > expected to either already know emacs or to use the nano editor.  DOS
> > seemed advanced by comparison.  Even zsh, one might think there's be
> > some default to user friendly setup out of the box but that's not the
> > way.  Anyway not to whine -- thanks for the 'info' tips.
> >
> > >
> >
> >