info-stnd: Invoking Info
2 Invoking Info
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GNU Info accepts several options to control the initial node or nodes
being viewed, and to specify which directories to search for Info files.
Here is a template showing an invocation of GNU Info from the shell:
info [OPTION...] [MANUAL] [MENU-OR-INDEX-ITEM...]
Info will look for an entry called MANUAL in the directory files,
which are named 'dir', that it finds in its search path. The search is
case-insensitive and considers substrings. (If MANUAL is not given, by
default Info displays a composite directory listing, constructed by
combining the 'dir' files.) A basic example:
info coreutils
This looks for an entry labelled 'coreutils', or 'Coreutils', etc.,
and if found, displays the referenced file (e.g., 'coreutils.info') at
the location given. 'info coreu' will find it too, if there is no
better match.
Another example:
info ls
Assuming the normal 'dir' entry for 'ls', this will show the 'ls'
documentation, which happens to be within the 'coreutils' manual rather
than a separate manual. The 'dir' entries can point to an any node
within a manual, so that users don't have to be concerned with the exact
structure used by different authors.
If no entry is found in the directories, Info looks for files in its
search path with names based on MANUAL. If MANUAL is not found, Info
looks for it with a number of known extensions of Info files, namely
'.info', '-info', '/index', and '.inf'. For every known extension, if a
regular file is not found, Info looks for a compressed file. Info
supports files compressed with 'gzip', 'xz', 'bzip2', 'lzip', 'lzma',
'compress' and 'yabba' programs, assumed to have extensions '.z', '.gz',
'.xz', '.bz2', '.lz', '.lzma', '.Z', and '.Y' respectively.(1)
You can specify the name of a node to visit with the '--node' or '-n'
option. Alternatively, you can specify the file and node together using
the same format that occurs in Info cross-references. These two
examples both load the 'Files' node within the 'emacs' manual:
info emacs -n Files
info '(emacs)Files'
If you want to load a file without looking in the search path,
specify MANUAL either as an absolute path, or as a path relative to the
current directory which contains at least one slash character. (You can
also use the '--file' option for similar behavior, described below.)
Examples:
info /usr/local/share/info/bash.info
info ./document.info
Info looks for MANUAL only in the explicitly specified directory, and
adds that directory to its search path.
Info treats any remaining arguments as the names of menu items, or
(see below) index entries. The first argument is a menu item in the
'Top' node of the file loaded, the second argument is a menu item in the
first argument's node, etc. You can move to the node of your choice by
specifying the menu names which describe the path to that node. For
example,
info emacs buffers
info texinfo Overview 'Using Texinfo'
The first example selects the menu item 'Buffers' in the node
'(emacs)Top'. The second example loads the 'texinfo' file and looks in
its top-level menu for a 'Overview' item, looks in the menu of the node
referenced, and finally displays the node referenced by the 'Using
Texinfo' item.
If there was only one MENU-OR-INDEX-ITEM argument and it wasn't found
as a menu item, Info looks for it as an index entry. For example:
info libc printf
This loads the libc Info manual and first looks for 'printf' in the
top-level menu as usual; since it isn't there (at this writing), it then
looks in the indices. If it's found there (which it is), the relevant
node at the given location is displayed.
A complete list of options follows.
'--all'
'-a'
Find all files matching MANUAL. Three usage patterns are
supported, as follows.
First, if '--all' is used together with '--where', 'info' prints
the names of all matching files found on standard output (including
'*manpages*' if relevant) and exits.
Second, if '--all' is used together with '--output', the contents
of all matched files are dumped to the specified output file.
Otherwise, an interactive session is initiated. If more than one
file matches, a menu node is displayed listing the matches and
allowing you to select one. This menu node can be brought back at
any time by pressing 'C-x f'. If there is only one match, 'info'
starts as usual.
When used with the '--index-search' option, 'info' displays a menu
of matching index entries (just as the 'virtual-index' command
does; see 
Index Commands).
The '--node' option cannot be used together with this option.
'--apropos=STRING'
'-k STRING'
Specify a string to search in every index of every Info file
installed on your system. Info looks up the named STRING in all
the indices it can find, prints the results to standard output, and
then exits. If you are not sure which Info file explains certain
issues, this option is your friend. (If your system has a lot of
Info files installed, searching all of them might take some time!)
You can invoke the apropos command from inside Info; see
Searching Commands.
'--debug=NUMBER'
'-x NUMBER'
Print additional debugging information. The argument specifies the
verbosity level, so a higher level includes all the information
from lower levels. For all available debugging output, use
'-x -1'. Info version 6.5 has these levels:
'1'
Print information about file handling, such as looking for
'dir' files and nodes written with '--output'.
'2'
Print operations relating to 'INFOPATH'.
'3'
Print information about node searching.
Before Info's full-screen output is initialized, debugging output
goes to standard error. After it is initialized, the debugging
output is written to the file 'infodebug' in the current working
directory.
'--directory DIRECTORY-PATH'
'-d DIRECTORY-PATH'
Add DIRECTORY-PATH to the list of directory paths searched when
Info needs to find a file. You may issue '--directory' multiple
times; once for each directory which contains Info files, or with a
list of such directories separated by a colon (or semicolon on
MS-DOS/MS-Windows).
Directories specified in the environment variable 'INFOPATH' are
added to the directories specified with '--directory', if any. The
value of 'INFOPATH' is a list of directories usually separated by a
colon; on MS-DOS/MS-Windows systems, the semicolon is used. If the
value of 'INFOPATH' ends with a colon (or semicolon on
MS-DOS/MS-Windows), the initial list of directories is constructed
by appending the build-time default to the value of 'INFOPATH'.
If you do not define 'INFOPATH', Info uses a default path defined
when Info was built as the initial list of directories.
Regardless of whether 'INFOPATH' is defined, the default
documentation directory defined when Info was built is added to the
search path. If you do not want this directory to be included, set
the 'infopath-no-defaults' variable to 'On' (
infopath-no-defaults).
If the list of directories contains the element 'PATH', that
element is replaced by a list of directories derived from the value
of the environment variable 'PATH'. Each path element of the form
DIR/BASE is replaced by DIR'/share/info' or DIR'/info', provided
that directory exists.
'--dribble=FILE'
Specify a file where all user keystrokes will be recorded. This
file can be used later to replay the same sequence of commands, see
the '--restore' option below.
'--file MANUAL'
'-f MANUAL'
Specify a particular manual to visit without looking its name up in
any 'dir' files.
With this option, it starts by trying to visit '(MANUAL)Top', i.e.,
the 'Top' node in (typically) 'MANUAL.info'. As above, it tries
various file extensions to find the file. If no such file (or
node) can be found, Info exits without doing anything. As with the
'dir' lookup described above, any extra MENU-ITEM arguments are
used to locate a node within the loaded file.
If MANUAL is an absolute file name, or begins with './' or '../',
or contains an intermediate directory, Info will only look for the
file in the directory specified, and add this directory to
'INFOPATH'. (This is the same as what happens when '--file' is not
given.)
'--help'
'-h'
Output a brief description of the available Info command-line
options.
'--index-search STRING'
After processing all command-line arguments, go to the index in the
selected Info file and search for index entries which match STRING.
If such an entry is found, the Info session begins with displaying
the node pointed to by the first matching index entry; press ',' to
step through the rest of the matching entries. If no such entry
exists, print 'no entries found' and exit with nonzero status.
This can be used from another program as a way to provide online
help, or as a quick way of starting to read an Info file at a
certain node when you don't know the exact name of that node.
When used with the '--all' option, 'info' displays a menu of
matching index entries (just as the 'virtual-index' command does;
see Index Commands).
This command can also be invoked from inside Info; Searching
Commands.
'--init-file INIT-FILE'
Read key bindings and variable settings from INIT-FILE instead of
the '.infokey' file in your home directory. Custom Key
Bindings.
'--node NODENAME'
'-n NODENAME'
Specify a particular node to visit in the initial file that Info
loads. You may specify '--node' multiple times: for an interactive
Info, each NODENAME is visited in its own window; for a
non-interactive Info (such as when '--output' is given) each
NODENAME is processed sequentially.
You can specify both the file and node to the '--node' option using
the usual Info syntax, but don't forget to escape the open and
close parentheses and whitespace from the shell; for example:
info --node "(emacs)Buffers"
'--output FILE'
'-o FILE'
Direct output to FILE. Each node that Info visits will be output
to FILE instead of interactively viewed. A value of '-' for FILE
means standard output.
'--no-raw-escapes'
'--raw-escapes, -R'
By default, Info passes SGR terminal control sequences (also known
as ANSI escape sequences) found in documents directly through to
the terminal. If you use the '--no-raw-escapes' options, these
sequences are displayed as other control characters are; for
example, an 'ESC' byte is displayed as '^['. The '--raw-escapes'
and '-R' options do not do anything, but are included for
completeness.
Some versions of Groff ((groff)Top) produce man pages with
ANSI escape sequences for bold, italics, and underlined characters,
and for colorized text. If your 'man' command uses a version of
Groff that does this (original GNU Groff does), and your terminal
supports these sequences, Info will display any bold or underlined
text in man pages. Some distributions have modified Groff to
require setting the 'GROFF_SGR' environment variable to get these
sequences. (groff)Invoking grotty.
'--restore=DRIBBLE-FILE'
Read keystrokes from DRIBBLE-FILE, presumably recorded during
previous Info session (see the description of the '--dribble'
option above). When the keystrokes in the files are all read, Info
reverts its input to the usual interactive operation.
'--show-malformed-multibytes'
'--no-show-malformed-multibytes'
Show malformed multibyte sequences in the output. By default, such
sequences are dropped.
'--show-options'
'--usage'
'-O'
Tell Info to look for the node that describes how to invoke the
program and its command-line options, and begin the session by
displaying that node. It is provided to make it easier to find the
most important usage information in a manual without navigating
through menu hierarchies. The effect is similar to the 'M-x
goto-invocation' command (goto-invocation) from inside
Info.
'--speech-friendly'
'-b'
On MS-DOS/MS-Windows only, this option causes Info to use standard
file I/O functions for screen writes. (By default, Info uses
direct writes to the video memory on these systems, for faster
operation and colored display support.) This allows the speech
synthesizers used by blind persons to catch the output and convert
it to audible speech.
'--strict-node-location'
This option causes Info not to search "nearby" to locate nodes, and
instead strictly use the information provided in the Info file.
The practical use for this option is for debugging programs that
write Info files, to check that they are outputting the correct
locations. Due to bugs and malfeasances in the various Info
writing programs over the years and versions, it is not advisable
to ever use this option when just trying to read documentation.
'--subnodes'
This option only has meaning when given in conjunction with
'--output'. It means to recursively output the nodes appearing in
the menus of each node being output. Menu items which resolve to
external Info files are not output, and neither are menu items
which are members of an index. Each node is only output once.
'-v NAME=VALUE'
'--variable=NAME=VALUE'
Set the 'info' variable NAME to VALUE. Variables.
'--version'
Prints the version information of Info and exits.
'--vi-keys'
This option binds functions to keys differently, to emulate the key
bindings of 'vi' and Less. The bindings activated by this option
DONTPRINTYET are documented in infokey format. (*NoteCustom Key
Bindings:: for a more general way of altering GNU Info's key
bindings.)
'--where'
'--location'
'-w'
Show the filename that would be read and exit, instead of actually
reading it and starting Info.
Custom Key Bindings:: for information on how to customize these
settings.
---------- Footnotes ----------
(1) On MS-DOS, Info allows for the Info extension, such as '.inf',
and the short compressed file extensions, such as '.z' and '.gz', to be
merged into a single extension, since DOS doesn't allow more than a
single dot in the basename of a file. Thus, on MS-DOS, if Info looks
for 'bison', file names like 'bison.igz' and 'bison.inz' will be found
and decompressed by 'gunzip'.
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