Re: Info enhancements

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Kai Grossjohann <address@hidden>
> Date: Sun, 07 Dec 2003 14:49:52 +0000
> >> 
> >> > * electric-future-map:                   A Sample Variable Description. 
> >> >                                            (line 999)
> >> 
> >> Actually, I found find it nice if the "(line 999)" part would align
> >> with all the other line numbers that aren't on extra lines.  What do
> >> people think?
> >
> > I tend to agree.  The question is, as always, is it feasible to force
> > makeinfo to do that?
> 
> Oh, I think I misunderstood.  I thought the original suggestion was to
> have makeinfo automatically put "(line 999)" on a new line.  In that
> case, I didn't expect that the number of leading spaces (or tabs?) on
> that line would make a lot of difference.  (And computing the right
> number of spaces to make sure that the ")" is in column 78 doesn't
> seem difficult.)
> 
> I guess there is some other issue that I'm not seeing.

What I think you are missing is that the alignment of the text "A
Sample Variable Description" is determined by the Texinfo source.  So
when makeinfo outputs the "(line 999)" thingy, it needs to somehow
``recall' the column number where that text begins (since it is not
known apriori, so cannot be simply a constant in the code).  This
requires that makeinfo ``remembers'' that column when it outputs the
line before the line number.  As makeinfo is essentially a one-pass
translator, I'm not sure it is easy to get it to remember such things.

But I might be mistaken: it's been a while since I last hacked
makeinfo.