> Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2026 13:00:55 +0100 > From: Vincent Lefevre <[email protected]> > > On 2026-02-23 20:46:15 +0000, Gavin Smith wrote: > > I tested this with a directory that contained just info-stnd.info > > and an empty file called "texinfo", with the link from info-stnd.info > > to the "texinfo" manual. (I don't have info.info on my system as > > this file is distributed with Emacs and I am not an Emacs user.) > > Sorry, I got confused. I've just noticed that when I type > "info info", I actually get "info-stnd.info" instead of > "info.info". If order to get "info.info", I need to type > "info info.info". This implicit ".info" is really misleading.
People forget that "info FOO" does _not_ mean "show the file FOO". Instead, it means "find manual named FOO in the info DIR file, and show that manual". The Info reader has a heuristic of assuming the user meant the file FOO if DIR doesn't have any entry for FOO a manual, but that's fallback. If you really want toshow the file FOO, you say "info -f FOO". Then the Info reader will find info.info without your having to type the extension explicitly > Moreover, after just typing "info", I get a menu with > > [...] > Texinfo documentation system > * Info: (info). How to use the documentation browsing system. > * Texinfo: (texinfo). The GNU documentation format. > * info stand-alone: (info-stnd). > Read Info documents without Emacs. > [...] > > and here, "info" corresponds to "info.info" as expected. Yes, because the extension does not need to be explicit, but only when you reference a file name. A command "info info" does not. > And the fact that "info.info" comes from Emacs is also misleading > (perhaps they should change that). Why is it misleading?
