> Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2026 18:39:59 +0100 > From: Vincent Lefevre <[email protected]> > Cc: [email protected], [email protected] > > On 2026-02-24 18:19:19 +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote: > > People forget that "info FOO" does _not_ mean "show the file FOO". > > Instead, it means "find manual named FOO in the info DIR file, and > > show that manual". The Info reader has a heuristic of assuming the > > user meant the file FOO if DIR doesn't have any entry for FOO a > > manual, but that's fallback. If you really want toshow the file FOO, > > you say "info -f FOO". Then the Info reader will find info.info > > without your having to type the extension explicitly > > But when there are both a manual name "foo" and a file "foo.info" > that do not refer to the same thing, this is confusing, IMHO.
That's heuristic for you. Use "info -f FOO" to avoid ambiguity. > > > And the fact that "info.info" comes from Emacs is also misleading > > > (perhaps they should change that). > > > > Why is it misleading? > > Because this manual appears under "Texinfo documentation system" rather > than "Emacs" (or something that could be called "Info readers"). I still don't understand why it's confusing. What you might not know is that it was decided in the past that the Emacs project will maintain this manual, because it describes both the Emacs Info reader and the stand-alone Info reader, and it is important to Emacs users since the Emacs Info reader is much more widely use than the stand-alone one. But we didn't want to make a mess out of the people's DIR files, so we left this manual in the Texinfo part of DIR.
