Re: [help-texinfo] Typing rules in Texinfo manual

[Gavin Smith]

On 15 February 2016 at 23:33, Karl Berry <address@hidden> wrote:
> I'm not sure what kind of input you are hoping for.  But I fear that
> this is a case where using @macro (or m4/other preprocessor macros,
> except apparently nobody except me ever liked that idea) is the best
> option.  Yes, you'd have to write different macro bodies for TeX, HTML,
> Info[, Docbook, XML].

Other preprocessor macros: Although Texinfo is not a (general-purpose)
typesetting language, I think of the use of processors for the troff
typesetting language. If I understand correctly, preprocessors like
eqn add commands to the language and are used to add extra features
(in eqn's case, typesetting of mathematics). Following that pattern
would be:

@TeXblock
...
@end TeXblock

and the preprocessor would replace this with @ifinfo, @tex, @html or whatever.

I'm not sure if this approach would be generally useful for Texinfo.

m4: one problem I see with m4 is not executing macros by mistake, and
how it's quoting characters would fit into Texinfo's syntax. That
problem is for whoever tries to use it, though.