[Maxima-discuss] Texinfo version, maxima.info build target, was: Help paths (was: Re: Maxima help can use browser now)

[Robert D. <rob...@gm...>]

On Mon, Jul 18, 2022 at 6:05 PM Raymond Toy <toy...@gm...> wrote:

>> About the makeinfo version, it seems like that should be enforced by
>> ./configure (unless --enable-build-docs=no).

> Yeah, I thought about it, but I didn't know how to get that enforced.  At least not without hacks on pattern matching the output from makeinfo --version.

Well, since it appears to be pretty important to get the right Texinfo
version, it seems like we're kind of obligated to do it. configure is
a huge collection of hackery, so one more won't stand out.

I've pushed 6286fee which fixes a problem (@menu stuff) which
prevented makeinfo from succeeding. Now make in doc/info succeeds, and
maxima-index.lisp is created, and describe works again.

It seems odd to me that makeinfo failed, but it didn't halt the build
-- I would have expected make to terminate with nonzero status. Make
happily plowed ahead and executed build_index.pl, which didn't notice
maxima.info doesn't exist. I guess build_index.pl could notice the
nonexistent maxima.info, but I think the more important thing is for
make to notice that makeinfo failed.

best,

Robert