Re: Request for feedback on texi2any customization file

[Gavin Smith]

On Wed, Aug 30, 2023 at 10:48:19AM +0200, Jonas Hahnfeld wrote:
> Not quite, I'm fine with warnings not resulting in errors (even though
> a -Werror like flag would be a nice addition!)
> 
> > However, I don't fully understand what the problem is with carrying on.
> > Could you not test the code with "-c TEXINFO_OUTPUT_FORMAT=parse " just
> > to see if any messages are printed with the customization code, without
> > doing the conversion to HTML?
> 
> Much of the more elaborate customization code will only run during
> conversion to HTML, so this *MUST* be part of the testing process. The
> problem I've been running into a lot (not being a versed Perl dev) are
> syntax errors in the customization file. To give the most simple
> example to reproduce, create a file error.init with the content "syntax
> error;" (ok, I'm also not that bad in writing Perl, but a forgotten
> semicolon here and there was certainly part of the story...)
> 
>  $ texi2any --html --init-file error.init --error-limit 0 short_sample.texi
> texi2any: warning: error loading ./error.init: Can't locate object method 
> "syntax" via package "error" (perhaps you forgot to load "error"?) at 
> ./error.init line 1.
>  $ echo $?
> 0
> 

Okay, in this case there doesn't seem to be any point in continuing the
program (and the exit status should be non-zero).  We'll have to see if
these errors can be distinguished from mere warnings.

I can imagine the current behaviour could cause problems if texi2any is
run by the "make" program as part of a build system and the build continues
after texi2any appears to complete successfully.

> Using the builtin error mechanism of returning a non-true value only
> results in a warning; put "return 0;" into a file return0.init:
>  $ texi2any --html --init-file return0.init --error-limit 0 short_sample.texi 
> texi2any: warning: error loading ./return0.init: ./return0.init did not 
> return a true value at /usr/share/texinfo/Texinfo/Config.pm line 130.
>  $ echo $?
> 0

This Perl mechanism is not appropriate, I seem to recall, for
signalling errors in loading the module.  Instead, you can use the
texinfo_register_init_loading_error and texinfo_register_init_loading_warning
functions to deliberately raise an error or warning.

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-texinfo/2022-08/msg00059.html.