> From: Gavin Smith <[email protected]> > Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2026 17:21:06 +0000 > > I think the meaning of the quoted node names in Info format is clear > enough, even if it is difficult to support them in Info browsers. > I don't think we should make the output more complicated to support > such node names, by adding the manual name as you suggest as a possibility. > I just don't think it would help - quoted node names themselves are an > obscure complication and then sometimes adding a manual name as well would > be an even more obscure complication layered on top. It would only cause > problems in the future when anyone comes back to review this area of the > Texinfo language. > > We never said they were supported before and this is not a problem that > we have to solve. > > We just have to accept that node names such as "(foo)bar" are unlikely to > work absolutely correctly in readers. It seems that they would be > inaccessible > with the g command in standalone Info. There may be ameleriorations that can > be made over time in the Info readers if people do want to use such node names > (for example allowing typing DEL in the g prompt somehow, or providing > alternative commands to load nodes in the same manual only).
>From my POV, the quoting is there to allow node references to be parsed correctly in the presence of various punctuation characters embedded in the node names. But once the parsing is done, the quoting has done its job, and it should be possible to remove it (something that the Emacs Info reader actually does) for the purposes of further handling of the node name. When looked at from this angle, it is unreasonable to expect "(foo)bar" nodes to work reliably, because whether they do or don't will depend on whether the implementation reuses functions used for the 'g' command and similar commands. So I think the conclusion is that such node names cannot work reliably, and should therefore be avoided.
