Re: comma in @node or @float line

> Hi Patrice,

Hi,

> I think you're discussing a hypothetical future rather than the current
> situation (which I believe you know very well :), but anyway, I'll reply

Yep.

> The purpose of @comma is to allow insertion of commas in the argument to
> various commands which take comma-delimited options.  It obviously can't
> be used in places where @-commands aren't allowed in the first place,
> like node names or xref names.

Right for the current state of things. 

> As for the hypothetical future, I am really not sure.  It's obviously
> only an issue when commands are allowed in node names, which right now
> they're not.  

But it is planned, isn't it? When doing info it works well with the command
line switch.

> One problem is that I'm not too sure what algorithm will work.  Given
> the need to parse a node line into @node a,b,c,d how do you determine
> where the commas are?  The rule that comes to mind is to look for commas
> not preceded by @ at the outermost brace level, but I'm not at all sure
> that is reliable.

It doesn't work with something like @verb{: aa }  :}. With that exception
it should be reliable. (I think I found that in another context, but I don't
remember exactly where, I believe @defun or @multitable).

> Perhaps it would be better to invent a new command which takes only a
> single node name as an argument.  Then there would be no need to parse
> the commas.  Of course it won't work with non-tree-structured manuals,
> but who cares ...

I agree it could simplify things (and @node seems a bit deprecated).

Pat
_______________________________________________
Texinfo home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/
[email protected]
http://ff0.org/mailman/listinfo/texinfo-pretest