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.
