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tex and texindex
Format the Texinfo file with the shell command tex followed by
the name of the Texinfo file. For example:
tex foo.texi
TeX will produce a DVI file as well as several auxiliary files containing information for indices, cross references, etc. The DVI file (for DeVice Independent file) can be printed on virtually any device (see the following sections).
The tex formatting command itself does not sort the indices; it
writes an output file of unsorted index data. (The texi2dvi
command automatically generates indices; see section Format with texi2dvi.) To generate a printed index after
running the tex command, you first need a sorted index to work
from. The texindex command sorts indices. (The source file
`texindex.c' comes as part of the standard Texinfo distribution,
among other places.)
The tex formatting command outputs unsorted index files under
names that obey a standard convention: the name of your main input file
with any `.tex' (or similar, see section `tex invocation' in Web2c) extension removed, followed by the two letter names of indices.
For example, the raw index output files for the input file
`foo.texinfo' would be `foo.cp', `foo.vr', `foo.fn',
`foo.tp', `foo.pg' and `foo.ky'. Those are exactly the
arguments to give to texindex.
Instead of specifying all the unsorted index file names explicitly, you can use `??' as shell wildcards and give the command in this form:
texindex foo.??
This command will run texindex on all the unsorted index files,
including any that you have defined yourself using @defindex
or @defcodeindex. (You may execute `texindex foo.??'
even if there are similarly named files with two letter extensions
that are not index files, such as `foo.el'. The texindex
command reports but otherwise ignores such files.)
For each file specified, texindex generates a sorted index file
whose name is made by appending `s' to the input file name. The
@printindex command looks for a file with that name
(see section Index Menus and Printing an Index). texindex does not alter the
raw index output file.
After you have sorted the indices, you need to rerun the tex
formatting command on the Texinfo file. This regenerates the DVI file,
this time with up-to-date index entries.
Finally, you may need to run tex one more time, to get the page
numbers in the cross-references correct.
To summarize, this is a five step process:
tex on your Texinfo file. This generates a DVI file (with
undefined cross-references and no indices), and the raw index files
(with two letter extensions).
texindex on the raw index files. This creates the
corresponding sorted index files (with three letter extensions).
tex again on your Texinfo file. This regenerates the DVI
file, this time with indices and defined cross-references, but with page
numbers for the cross-references from last time, generally incorrect.
texindex.
tex one last time. This time the correct page numbers are
written for the cross-references.
Alternatively, it's a one-step process: run texi2dvi
(see section Format with texi2dvi).
You need not run texindex each time after you run tex. If
you do not, on the next run, the tex formatting command will use
whatever sorted index files happen to exist from the previous use of
texindex. This is usually ok while you are debugging.
Sometimes you may wish to print a document while you know it is
incomplete, or to print just one chapter of a document. In that case,
the usual auxiliary files that TeX creates and warnings TeX gives
when cross-references are not satisfied are just nuisances. You can
avoid them with the @novalidate command, which you must give
before the @setfilename command
(see section @setfilename). Thus, the beginning of
your file would look approximately like this:
\input texinfo @novalidate @setfilename myfile.info ...
@novalidate also turns off validation in
makeinfo, just like its --no-validate option
(see section Pointer Validation).
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