On Tue, Feb 24, 2026 at 02:55:08PM +0100, Vincent Lefevre wrote: > On 2026-02-24 15:38:48 +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote: > > It is okay to make the Info reader more robust in these situations, > > but by and large, the assumption is and always has been that the > > directory where Info files are stored should have nothing except Info > > files (including DIR and any image files used by the manuals). If any > > other files are present there, IMNSHO it's a cockpit mistake of sorts, > > and the solution should be to remove those non-Info files. They have > > no reason to be there. > > I agree about directories from the info path, but *not* for > directories outside of the info path. The latter occurs when > following a cross-reference from an info file that was given > on the command line, e.g. in a source tree, typically during > the development and testing of software.
Imagine somebody wants to load a manual from an interconnected collection of manuals that all reference each other. The Emacs manuals, for example. It makes no difference whether directory containing the manual is on the search path. Somebody could do, for example, something like info /mnt/non/default/directory/emacs/78.9/info/emacs.info - with many Info files under /mnt/non/default/directory/emacs/78.9/info, and it would make sense for a cross-reference to "elisp" to be sought first as /mnt/non/default/directory/emacs/78.9/info/elisp.info, rather than starting at the beginning of the Info search path.
