Re: @itemize @asis is not well supported

[Gavin Smith]

On Tue, Mar 05, 2024 at 11:59:23AM +0100, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 04, 2024 at 09:16:44PM +0000, Gavin Smith wrote:
> > \itemcontents expands to \asis and then TeX tries to take the } following
> > as the argument to \asis, which is invalid.
> > 
> > Basically @asis takes an argument in the TeX implementation, whereas
> > commands like @bullet or @minus don't, even though you usually should
> > write them as @bullet{} and @minus{}.
> 
> To me this supports even more changing the Texinfo language to have
> braces for @bullet or @minus on the @itemize line, as not having them
> seems to be permitted by an implementation detail of the TeX
> implementation.
> 
> I attach a diff for the Texinfo manual to remove the permission not to
> have braces for mark commands on the @itemize line.
> 
> Would that be ok to apply?

"@itemize @asis" is definitely wrong and could give a warning if not
an error.  That seems the main thing to change.

I don't agree with changing the language to require braces.  There is
not a good reason to change it.  Although writing "@itemize @bullet{}"
may be more regular than "@itemize @bullet", it is a core and stable
part of the Texinfo lanugage, regardless of which one you might prefer.

I would rather say that "@itemize @w{}" is the usage that is permiitted
by details of the implementation.  "@itemize @bullet" is the more typical
usage.

It seems like there are two permitted types of argument
* @itemize with a glyph command as an argument, without braces 
* @itemize with any valid Texinfo argument.  For example, "@itemize A"
to use the letter "A" as the bullet.

The second is hardly encouraged or used at all, except for "@itemize @w{}".
The last could be checked for as a special case.  We could try to check
in existing manuals how @itemize is used.  There may not be a benefit in
trying to be more general.