On Sat, Apr 29, 2017 at 07:28:32PM +0100, Gavin Smith wrote: > On Sat, Apr 29, 2017 at 11:25:44AM +0100, Gavin Smith wrote: > > The test was introduced in SVN revision 5345 on 2013-08-27. I think > > it is supposed to test that the CR characters are being ignored, but > > they aren't in the macro definition, so this looks like a bug. > > I've committed a change to convert any CR-LF line endings when the > lines of an input file are read. Previously, they would be ignored > in some circumstances, but they made a difference in others, causing > this test failure. This should produce consistency with TeX programs > that treat CR-LF as a line ending, as well.
On second thoughts, I think we should remove CR-LF line ending support on GNU/Linux (or other Unix-style operating systems) altogether. * Texinfo files with CR-LF line ending worked OK on Windows already, as this test failure showed. This doesn't need to change. * Texinfo files with CR-LF line ending didn't work reliably on GNU/Linux, so little would be lost by removing whatever support there was for it. * Allowing CR-LF line endings on GNU/Linux (or whenever the file is viewed as a string of bytes) makes the format of Texinfo input files more complicated. It would encourage more files to be produced with these line endings. Then the existence of these files would demand that these line endings be supported forever. On the other hand, only supporting one kind of line ending makes things simpler. * Even if texi2any supported Texinfo files with CR-LF line endings, they could cause problems when users use other tools (e.g. grep, or even tools users wrote themselves). * Only Windows uses CR-LF line endings (maybe there were other operating systems in the past that used these too, or other ways to separate lines, but they are irrelevant now). It is contrary to the philosophy of the GNU project to make changes that encourage the use of proprietary software like Microsoft Windows, especially if it makes support for free operating systems harder (harder because it is more complicated). (See e.g. https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Platforms.html#Platforms) * If a Texinfo file with CR-LF endings is transmitted to a system that uses LF line endings, the line endings should be converted. If Windows users like to have CR-LF line endings for their files, they can convert them the other way, and Texinfo on Windows will support them, I assume. Note: Info files with CR-LF line endings should carry on being supported. on all operating systems. This is about Texinfo files only.
