12.2. Info documents

Info documents should be installed in /usr/share/info. They should be compressed with gzip -9.

The install-info program maintains a directory of installed info documents in /usr/share/info/dir for the use of info readers. This file must not be included in packages other than install-info.

install-info is automatically invoked when appropriate using dpkg triggers. Packages other than install-info should not invoke install-info directly and should not depend on, recommend, or suggest install-info for this purpose.

Info readers requiring the /usr/share/info/dir file should depend on install-info.

Info documents should contain section and directory entry information in the document for the use of install-info. The section should be specified via a line starting with INFO-DIR-SECTION followed by a space and the section of this info page. The directory entry or entries should be included between a START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY line and an END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY line. For example:

  1. INFO-DIR-SECTION Individual utilities
  2. START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
  3. * example: (example).               An example info directory entry.
  4. END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY

To determine which section to use, you should look at /usr/share/info/dir on your system and choose the most relevant (or create a new section if none of the current sections are relevant). 5