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Groups > linux.debian.user > #270046

Re: info vs. man

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On 12/06/2024 01:00, Greg Wooledge wrote:
>> On 11/06/2024 06:45, Greg Wooledge wrote:
>>> Should you ever feel a need to read the longer version of the
>>> documentation, it's in GNU info pages.  So you would need to type
>>> the command "info coreutils date" to get to it.  And then you'd need
>>> to figure out the user interface of the "info" program, which is not
>>> intuitive unless you happen to be an emacs power user already.
[...]
> I also provided a reference to the info page, and a command that would
> bring that up, should the need ever arise.  More importantly, I revealed
> that info pages *exist* and *are a thing* that they need to know about.
> It's planting a seed for the future.

I misunderstood your intention and I am sorry for that. I found your 
words quite discouraging in respect to "info", perhaps it is just 
language barrier.

Info is quite important. While e.g. "man bash" and "info bash" documents 
are quite similar, there is no man equivalent for "info grub".

Your variant of info command is quite specific. I like that "info" 
allows partial match of node name and it may be a separate argument. 
Unfortunately tkinfo and the Emacs function require another style (info 
"(coreutils) date invocation"). Every coreutils man page has it in the 
"SEE ALSO" section.

I do not mind that users almost certainly familiar with basic pager UI 
and using of "info" requires some knowledge. In this particular case UI 
does not differ

- info "(coreutils) date invocation"
- /week [Enter]

P.S. Perhaps Emacs developers teach users how to fish as well. From my 
point of view the following path described in "emacs --help" is 
unnecessary long:

> Run M-x info RET m emacs RET m emacs invocation RET inside Emacs to
> read the main documentation for these command-line arguments.

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date for week Jeff Peng <jeff@tls-mail.com> - 2024-06-11 01:30 +0200
  Re: date for week Roberto C. Sánchez <roberto@debian.org> - 2024-06-11 01:30 +0200
    Re: date for week Jeff Peng <jeff@tls-mail.com> - 2024-06-11 01:50 +0200
  Re: date for week Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> - 2024-06-11 01:50 +0200
    info vs. man (was: Re: date for week) Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2024-06-11 18:30 +0200
      Re: info vs. man (was: Re: date for week) Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> - 2024-06-11 20:10 +0200
        Re: info vs. man Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2024-06-12 18:10 +0200
  Re: date for week "rtnetzlof@windstream.net" <rtnetzlof@windstream.net> - 2024-06-11 01:50 +0200

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