Re: generating Info encoded in UTF-8 only

On Fri, Aug 14, 2026 at 05:54:17PM +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2026 16:42:32 +0200
> > From: Patrice Dumas <[email protected]>
> > Cc: [email protected]
> > 
> > The first issue is about the encoding of cross-references.  With a mix
> > of encodings, the cross-references in the source and target manual may
> > not match.  The Info readers could mitigate this issue, but it would
> > involve more decoding/recoding.  For the C Info reader, Gavin decided
> > that it is not worth it (it is documented in the manual).
> 
> Emacs decodes each file it reads separately, and if that file
> specifies its encoding (as it should be in case of Info file), this is
> even 100% reliable.

The standalone Info reader does that too, to present the Info in the
needed locale.  But it is not sufficient for cross-references, though I
do not remember why.

> It is okay for the stand-alone Info to only support UTF-8 encoded
> manuals, or not support cross-references to a manual that is encoded
> differently, but why should this decision affect what makeinfo does?

It is not the only reason, but it is an additional reason.

> > More generally, having only UTF-8 encoded Info manuals will only
> > simplify things in the long term, without any drawback.  Info files are
> > not usually manually modified, people modifying Info files manually
> > will know what to do about encodings.
> 
> I understand why supporting only UTF-8 is easier.  What I don't
> understand is how will we justify the removal of a useful feature just
> because it's harder to support.

The point is that this feature is not really useful, because Info
readers should always render correctly UTF-8, other encodings are not
needed.  I can't imagine a case where a user would want an Info file in
a specific encoding.  It could be different if Info files were supposed
to be edited, but it is very rare.  In a way the Info files should be
considered as a kind of binary files that are only to be processed by
tools that know about the format.

-- 
Pat