Re: Customizing @var?

[Patrice Dumas]

On Tue, Sep 20, 2022 at 04:31:08PM -0700, Raymond Toy wrote:
> Is it possible to customize what @var does (for info files) without
> redefining @var?
> Maxima redefines @var to
> 
> @macro var {expr}
> <\expr\>
> @end macro

This is not recommended, and could even be forbidden, in my opinion, to
redefine existing Texinfo @-commands. 

> This breaks things like
> 
> @table @var
> 
> So I'm curious if there's some way to customize @var without defining it.

There is @definfoenclose, but it is deprecated.  I just tested that it
leads to a warning, but otherwise formats the output as you expected,
I think.

As a side note, this is documented:

   The '@table' command works with other commands besides those
 explicitly mentioned here.  However, you can only use predefined Texinfo
 commands that take an argument in braces.  You cannot reliably use a new
 command defined with '@macro', although an '@alias' (for a suitable
 predefined command) is acceptable.

It does not seems to me to be a good thing to accept @-commands defined
by @macro as @table argument, for two reasons
* it would not be possible to know if the command should be expanded
  immediatly like macro defined command usually are, or be expanded later
* the use of commands in argument to @table to format table @item is
  done during conversion, and not during parsing, at wihch time
  @-commands defined by @macro have all been expanded.

-- 
Pat