https://github.com/arp242/info

A simple GNU info replacement which isn't terrible
https://github.com/arp242/info

texinfo

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A simple GNU info replacement which isn't terrible

• Host: GitHub
• URL: https://github.com/arp242/info
• Owner: arp242
• License: mit
• Created: 2019-02-18T11:59:52.000Z (about 6 years ago)
• Default Branch: master
• Last Pushed: 2019-02-21T02:07:03.000Z (about 6 years ago)
• Last Synced: 2025-03-25T14:39:06.276Z (about 2 months ago)
• Topics: texinfo
• Language: Go
• Size: 9.77 KB
• Stars: 24
• Watchers: 3
• Forks: 0
• Open Issues: 1
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: README.markdown
  • License: LICENSE

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README

        
[![This project is considered experimental](https://img.shields.io/badge/Status-experimental-red.svg)](https://arp242.net/status/experimental)

A simple GNU `info` replacement which isn't terrible.

This program displays the info pages as a single document in the standard pager

(usually `less` or `more`) with various redundant formatting and free software

propaganda removed (some pages contain more license text than actual useful

content).

You can install it with `go get arp242.net/info`, which will put the binary at

`~/go/bin/info`.

If the output is a terminal device the output will be piped to `MANPAGER` or

`PAGER` if set. The default is to use `more -s`.

`INFOPATH` is respected.

There are no commandline options at this point; all arguments starting with `-`

are ignored.

---

Is this too complex? You can approximate it with something like:

	info() {

		zcat "/usr/share/info/$1.info.gz" |

			sed -Ee "/\x1f/d; /^File: $1.info,/d; /^(Node|Ref): .*/d" |

			cat -s |

			less

	}

This was the original version; but it was too hard to handle stuff like info

pages split over several files (which this snippet won't handle) so I ended up

writing the Go tool.

There's also [info2man](https://cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/css/info2pod.html). I

needed to make some changes to get it to work, and the output didn't look too

great. This tool goes back to [at least

2004](https://web.archive.org/web/20040625210730/https://cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/css/info2pod.html).

These criticism of Texinfo are hardly new, and the GNU folk's imperviousness to

it isn't, either.

A Texinfo rant

--------------

I have been using several different variants of Unix for almost 20 years. Yet I

still cannot navigate GNU's Texinfo.

- Maybe the key bindings make sense from an Emacs perspective, but most of us

  aren't Emacs users. There is no way to make it behave like the more standard

  "vi-ish" key bindings as far as I can find. I need to learn an entire new set

  of key bindings. From the perspective of the majority of users the key

  bindings are just nonsensical.

  If you're thinking "just read the manual you doofus": buzz off. Do you think I

  have nothing better to do than learn how to use some obscure piece of software

  I don't even like just to read some fecking plain text once a month? I've got

  about 80 years in my life, and this is *not* how I want to spend it.

  And should the entire industry deal with this crap? How many man-hours will be

  wasted? Far too many. The only reason I sat down and wrote this in a bout of

  anger-driven development is the hope that it'll save myself and a bunch of

  other people some time and frustration.

- I don't like tech docs split over loads of very small pages; only makes it

  harder to read or search for things.

  I discovered that you can use `info --subnodes page | less` after I wrote this

  tool to output to a single page. I originally tried this, but it doesn't

  work unless you pipe it; just `info --subnodes` behaves as usual and the

  option is silently ignored 🤦

  It won't strip all the crap though (like now-useless navigation).

- There is no longer a single source for documentation; do I look at the info

  page or man page? Some tools have both, but one is more comprehensive than the

  other (sometimes info, sometimes man).

  Fragmentation and inconsistency has long been considered one of Unix's weak

  points, and rightfully so. Texinfo only makes this worse. Then again, "GNU's

  not Unix" 🤷

- Every page comes with an inordinate amount of free software advocacy. I want

  to read a bloody manual, not a political statement. I know where the websites

  of the FSF and GNU are if I'm interested.

  Example: tar page minus crap is reduced from 91k words to 73k, grep from 7.5k

  to 14.5k. That's right, over half of the grep info page is Free Software

  wankery  ✊🍆 💦

- Some pages include images, which don't work inside a terminal (all of the

  images in the info pages on my system could be easily represented with a

  simple ASCII diagram, so why use images? Because you can I guess.)

There are exactly two good points:

- It's not widely used outside of GNU.

- The source format is fairly readable, so it's not too hard to write an

  alternative reader for it.

The entire Texinfo project is a failure. A more reasonable person would have

moved on from it a decade ago.

None of this means that man pages couldn't do with some enhancement – better

referencing probably being the most prominent – but GNU info isn't the answer.